Mumbai, 29 June 2020: Amid COVID 19 pandemic, the sub-committee of Standing Committee of IIT Council (SCIC) has recommended a list of measures for minimum common strategy to be followed by all IITs for academic activities coming semesters. These recommendations need to be approved by Senate of each IITs.
According to this report, classes for the first semester of the 2020-21 academic year will be conducted online for all courses. Semester 1 of 2020-21 classes for all UG (under Graduate) and PG (Post Graduate) programs will be conducted in online mode for all courses, with short term and smaller weightage evaluations.
IIT Delhi Senate, in its 211th meeting, has agreed to go in-principle with the Standing Committee of IIT Council (SCIC) sub-committee recommendations for our autumn semester (2020) academic activities, Ramgopal Rao, Director IIT Delhi informed.
Earlier, in an announcement, Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director of IIT Bombay, said “After a long deliberation in the Senate meeting today , we have decided today that the next semester will be run purely in the online mode so that there is no compromise on the safety and well being of the students.”
Hence, there will be only virtual classes for the upcoming semester for all students. This is the first time in IIT Bombay’s 62-year old history that a new academic year will start with no students on campus.
IIT Madras proposes to start classes online for some of the courses for next semester from 03 August 2020. The Jan-May 2020 courses that are prerequisite for courses in the following semesters would be considered as met if students have registered for the prerequisites even if the exams for such courses stand postponed.
IIT Madras said that courses that have both fresh PG students and continuing students enrolled in them will not start till the time the new students arrive. The rest of the courses will begin on 3 August 2020.
Continuing students who return to campus at some point during the next semester in order to access the Internet, can continue with the online classes once they are here in their hostels.
IIT Madras informed that all final-year projects in 2020-21 will be computational/theoretical without experimental work. In case experimental work becomes possible later in the year or next year, the project will be suitably augmented.
Meanwhile, as per media reports, IIT Jodhpur has decided to go for virtual classes from next semester.
