From relaxing attendance norms, exam schedules, lowering average marks to pass, rationalising the number of credits to complete a course, bringing in a ‘no-termination’ policy to introducing sports admissions and allowing a longer vacation to students to unwind, major academic reforms have been brought in by top Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) over the past two years to ease out mental pressure on students that has often resulted into suicides on these campuses and forced the premier tech institutes to review the existing policies.
The IITs include the top-rated first-generation institutes such as IIT-Madras, IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Roorkee and most recently, IIT-Guwahati, which has been rocked by two student suicides within a month and another one earlier this year in April.
Most of these policy changes were affected post-pandemic, a period that saw an alarming number of students taking the extreme step across the IIT campuses.
In 2024, already, eight student suicides have been reported from various IITs, including – three in Guwahati, two in Kanpur and one each in Delhi, BHU and Roorkee. All of these are first generation IITs, except for IIT-Guwahati, which though is one of the older IITs, but is yet not considered first generation since it was set up in the 1990s. All of these are top-ranking institutes.
In July 2023, the Ministry of Education (MoE) had told the Lok Sabha that of the 98 student suicides in centrally-funded institutions, 33, which is the highest, were reported from the IITs.
After a spate of suicides at these IITs, protests broke out on campuses with students demanding ‘systemic’ and ‘structural’ reforms in the functioning of the institutes, ultimately forcing the former to take note and introduce policy changes.
What are these reforms?
IIT-Guwahati has ensured students it will look into relaxing the 75 per cent mandatory attendance rule and bringing in more ‘flexibility’ in the existing academic policies following three days of massive protests on campus post the death of a BTech student allegedly by suicide on its campus on September 9.
Academic changes can be put into effect only through the senate, which is the highest decision-making body of an IIT for all academic policies. Many IITs, including IIT-Delhi, have now started having student representatives on board, who are part of the process.
From this academic session, IIT-Delhi has relaxed the overall CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) criteria — an index of a student’s academic performance, which reflects throughout their course duration. This means that students can now get a graduation degree by just passing all the required courses — a significant policy change that has been brought about to address mental health issues.
The institute has also made changes in the re-start and termination policies, which means it will allow students to progress academically putting them on probation period. So, in-principle there will be no termination as such on this basis.
In December last year, IIT-Delhi established an ‘Academic Progress Group’, which has faculty members and student mentors to assist those struggling with backlogs and on extended degrees. The institute identifies such students from each department and handholds them throughout the programme.
In exceptional cases, the institute has also formulated a policy to allow students to stay with a family member on campus as well as reserving hostel seats for those on extended degrees beyond the regular semester duration to help them complete their degrees.
Following two suicides this January and one in December 2023, IIT-Kanpur worked out a ‘no-termination policy’ for postgraduate (PG) students in the first semester. This policy has come into effect from the 2024-25 academic session.
Last October, IIT-Madras, which has been the top-ranking IIT in the National Institutional Rankings Framework (NIRF) for six consecutive years, introduced a change in the grading system for research scholars, which allowed students to grade their supervisors and give feedback on their mentorship.
IIT-Madras was the most affected campus in 2023 with five student suicides reported over a period of six months.
It’s also the first IIT to introduce Sports Excellence Admissions. This was the first year for the admissions to come into effect and five national champions have joined the campus.
“We must review the way IITs have been functioning and re-invent the system with respect to the current day and time, away from its legacy. Rules that existed two decades ago cannot be implemented in the same manner. Initially, at least the older IITs, only had students from upper middle class and mostly high-income families, now that education has reached to the rural and most backward states as well, we have students from every corner. We have to make the system flexible for all to fit in,” said a senior faculty member at the helm of the academic reforms at one of these IITs.
However, with continuing suicides, students still question if these reforms are enough and have been demanding a more open and freer student-faculty relationship. This was also one of the demands made by protesting students at IIT-Guwahati campus last week.
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