19th Nov 2010
Anubhuti Vishnoi
Rattled by yet another suicide on campus, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur is set to amend its academic progression rules and ‘rationalise’ the cut-off cumulative performance index from 5 points to 4 points to ease pressure of students.
While the institute claims it is not precisely academic pressure that can be blamed for the recent spate of suicides and several other factors are responsible, they also admit their academic progression rules are one of the most stringent across IITs.
The IIT has already put before its Senate a proposal to amend the existing academic progression rules. It has suggested major changes in the way warning, probation and termination clauses are handed down to students and, most importantly, bringing down the cut-off for getting an IIT degree to the pass percentage of CPI value 4.
The CPI is a measure of a student’s performance in all courses. At IIT Kanpur, if a student passes all the courses, he gets a D, which means a minimum CPI score of 4.0.
But according to current rules at IIT-K, a student needs to get a CPI of 5.0 to graduate. All students who attain a CPI less than 5.0 — and that is a substantial number — are unable to graduate and consequently face academic stress, get warnings, probations and are even terminated.
Now, it has been proposed that the CPI value of 4 itself be made the reference point for a more humane and less stress-free performance appraisal of students. However, provisions for warnings, probations and terminations with appeal have been retained.
While the institute claims it is not precisely academic pressure that can be blamed for the recent spate of suicides and several other factors are responsible, they also admit their academic progression rules are one of the most stringent across IITs.
The IIT has already put before its Senate a proposal to amend the existing academic progression rules. It has suggested major changes in the way warning, probation and termination clauses are handed down to students and, most importantly, bringing down the cut-off for getting an IIT degree to the pass percentage of CPI value 4.
The CPI is a measure of a student’s performance in all courses. At IIT Kanpur, if a student passes all the courses, he gets a D, which means a minimum CPI score of 4.0.
But according to current rules at IIT-K, a student needs to get a CPI of 5.0 to graduate. All students who attain a CPI less than 5.0 — and that is a substantial number — are unable to graduate and consequently face academic stress, get warnings, probations and are even terminated.
Now, it has been proposed that the CPI value of 4 itself be made the reference point for a more humane and less stress-free performance appraisal of students. However, provisions for warnings, probations and terminations with appeal have been retained.
