National Institute of Technology

Students taking admission in the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Patna, from this academic session would not have to scout for new career avenues if they fail to secure sufficient cumulative grade point average (CGPA).

The tech cradle administration has decided to dump the practice of issuing Not Fit for Technical Education (NFTE) certificate to non-performing students. A student failing to get a CGPA of 6 in two years would get a NFTE certificate, which implied expulsion from NIT-Patna and bar on applying to any All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)- recognised institution.

NIT director Asok De said: “NIT-Patna is about to introduce new promotion rules on the lines of NIT-Suratkal (Karnataka). There will be no pressure on students and it would save them from the problem of getting promotion.”

U.S. Periyar, academic dean, NIT Patna, said: “Changes made with respect to promotion criterion include reducing the minimum credits required for promotion and doing away with the CGPA system.”

Earlier, the minimum credit required for promotion to the next year was 42. Now, it is 25. In the new system, a student has to get CGPA of 6 at the end of four years.

Students have welcomed the new examination rules. Sashi Shekhar, a final-year computer science student who has bagged a job in a Korea-based company, said: “The new system is good for students, as we have seen many of our friends struggling to clear backlog papers, which, in due course, affected their placement, too.”

Elaborating the CGPA system at NIT, assistant professor Sanjay Kumar said: “Under NIT-Patna examination rules, different subjects are divided with different credits in the range of 2 to 5. For instance, mathematics and physics has 5 credits, while technical English has 2 credits. Suppose a student scores 80 out of 100 in mathematics, then the marks obtained is multiplied by 5 credits. Similarly, marks of all 16 papers in a year are calculated. The final percentage is calculated after dividing the total marks in scored in all papers by the total credits.”