Phone a friend to clear doubts on DU

Phone a friend to clear doubts on DU

Team Of Volunteers Answers Admission Queries On Call And Via Email

Mohammad.Ibrar@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:23.06.2020

Sparsh Singh wakes up early, sets up his laptop and waits for the clock to strike 10am to answer a steady stream of queries from across the country on the Delhi University admissions. He is one of the 22 student volunteers trained online as first responders for any such question as the DU admissions has turned totally online due to the corona pandemic.

They have taken the place of the helpdesk on the campus and to make it convenient for them, DU has shifted the facility from its conference centre to the homes of the volunteers. The team usually daily responds to 250 calls and several hundreds of emails from applicants and their parents.

Singh, a BTech student of DU’s Central Institute of Education, said every department and college was asked to send the names of students who would be willing to volunteer. “After we sent our applications, we were interviewed online and asked if we were familiar with the admission process and willing to help the university,” he said.

In May, the volunteers were trained by faculty members and officials of the admission branch to handle all types of queries. “We had regular sessions with them where we would clear their doubts and also make them aware of the nuances of the admission process,” said admission branch head Shobha Bagai. She pointed out that since the volunteers won’t come to the campus, it was necessary to tell them everything in detail.

Singh concurred and said there were several presentations from various departments and sections like those dealing with sports and extracurricular activity admissions. “We were told about the queries that would come our way and how we would tackle them. We were also asked to go through last year’s bulletin of information.”

The students are connected on WhatsApp and DU has shared the numbers of four volunteers who can forward queries to the rest. “If they get some tough questions, they approach admission branch members and we help them real time,” said Suman Kumar, a member of admission branch.

The volunteers also have to deal with fake news. “From June 8, we started getting multiple calls as some websites reported that DU had released its form. There were other misinformation-related queries too,” said another volunteer. Many have even got a new phone number for this work, the volunteer added.