IITs ease exam, online class stress for students as cases surge

With Covid-19 cases on the rise across the country, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are doing their best to ease the burden of students, especially those whose family members have tested positive for the virus

With Covid-19 cases on the rise across the country, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are doing their best to ease the burden of students, especially those whose family members have tested positive for the virus.

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IIT-Bombay on Thursday announced that students, whose close family members have been infected, will be allowed to take the end semester exams at a later date. The semester exams will be held online and kick off on Monday. All undergraduate courses are being held online and around 3,000 postdoctoral and research fellows are currently on campus.

“The health and wellbeing of all students are more important than the exams they write. In the senate meeting held Thursday, it was decided that no student should suffer from exam-related stress during this extremely difficult time of the pandemic in the country,” said Subhasis Chaudhuri, director, IIT-Bombay.

The senate has decided that any student, who falls sick or whose family member falls sick, will be given the chance to take the end-sem exams at a later date.

The institute has a provision for an ‘I grade’ wherein students can choose to defer or withdraw from the exams for the said course. Among other interim measures announced by Shantanu Roy, dean, academics, IIT Delhi, the institute has relaxed its mandate for attending online classes till the end of April.

“We have our senate meeting coming up next week and some more measures will also be discussed in there,” said V Ramgopal Rao, director, IIT Delhi.

While IIT Madras always allows make-up exams to students, who are unable to write exams on the scheduled date, the institute is also permitting the students absent in online classes to download and view the recorded lectures. Even if the student views the recorded lecture (at any time /day) attendance is granted.

IIT Mandi, too, has removed the mandatory attendance criteria for online courses. “The majority of courses are taught in a live mode online, and subsequently, the video recordings, lecture transcripts, and notes are made available to the students to ensure that they have full access to the course material. This also ensures that course offerings cater to students with different internet bandwidth accessibilities,” said Srikant Srinivasan, associate dean, courses, IIT Mandi.