IIT Bombay, Kharagpur, Roorkee and Kanpur students will not have to sit for final year exams

• IIT Kharagpur and Kanpur have decided to mark students based on internal assessments including viva, projects, quizzes and mid-semester exams.
  
• IIT-Delhi is considering early graduation options.
  
• Meanwhile, Maharashtra government has also decided to go against conducting the final year exams across courses.

In its latest directive, the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) said that the final year college students will have to sit for exams in July — or later if the condition worsens.

However, a few Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) — Mumbai, Kanpur, Roorkee and Kharagpur campuses — are doing away with final graduation exams in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. While others are evaluating online examination modules, grading systems and early graduation.

IIT Roorkee said that it will promote students of 2019-20 batch based on performance grade points. However, it mentioned that the students can appear for the exam later, if they don’t want to go ahead with the grading pattern.

"We have introduced a system to convert a pass letter grade to a Satisfactory (S) grade without grade point if a student requests for the same. The weightage ranges of various evaluation components have been revised. Further, students also have the option to appear in a re-exam to improve their grades," Director AK Chaturvedi told news agency PTI.

IIT Kharagpur and Kanpur have decided to mark students based on internal assessments including viva, projects, quizzes and mid-semester exams. The institute has formulated a special committee to work on the grading scheme. In fact, as an exception due to COVID crisis, IIT Kanpur said that no student will fail this year, and the grades would be marked as A,B,C or S.

On similar lines, IIT Bombay will evaluate students based on their performance in the mid-semester examinations while up to 20% weightage can be given to online exams — if all the students register to appear in it.

IIT-Delhi is considering early graduation options. A Twitter post shared by IIT-D director V Ramgopal Rao said “For early graduation, there are two options. Students can choose the ‘Audit pass/fail’ option or a credit option. For audit pass/fail, instructors will declare the cutoff. For credit options, students will take online tests, home exams, assignments and viva voice as applicable. Grading policy will also be announced.”


Meanwhile, Maharashtra government has also decided to go against conducting the final year exams. State Cabinet Minister Aaditya Thackeray said that the students will be promoted based on the aggregate marks.

Overall, as many as 33 crore students are enrolled in over 45,000 colleges in India. In March, the HRD Ministry directed all the educational institutions — including the universities, entrance exam centres to shut down in wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since then, colleges have been trying to move the academic sessions online.

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