JNTUH reduces cut-off for its credit-based detention policy; students rejoice

A majority of students from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) Hyderabad, who have completed their third year recently, are happy. They state that the university has considered their request and released a notification, today, October 17, reducing the cut-off percentage of their credit-based detention policy. 

It may be noted that the credit-based detention policy of JNTUH requires students to repeat a year if they fail to acquire a specified minimum number of credits in a subject. The varsity had discontinued this policy in 2019 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, but a decision to resume it was taken earlier this month, when classes were continuing offline.

The students were upset about the re-imposition of this policy by the university from the current academic year. In a previous interview with EdexLive, the concerned students had commented that the announcement of the implementation of this policy was all of a sudden and they were not prepared for it.

Today's notification comes after the concerned students launched a protest to cancel this policy for the current academic year last week, on October 10. "A group of students met the VC and discussed the issue. The VC said that he would consider them and a decision would be taken by the end of the week," informed Shahazan Khan, a senior student at the varsity.

"As per the new notification, we now need to secure 25 per cent of credits for each subject. Earlier we had to obtain 50 per cent," said T Mukund Madhav, a student of the concerned batch. He added that with the reduction in the cut-off, a majority of the students were eligible to be promoted to the next year and, hence, were pleased.

"The information with reference to credit based detention was communicated through Director of Evaluation letters to the Principals of colleges," the official notification states. "In the current scenario of the consequential effect of the pandemic, the University decided to relax credits for promotion to the next year of B.Tech/ B.Pharm courses, i.e. the students have to secure minimum of 25% of total credits," it reads further.
 
However, Shahazan said that the 25 per cent cut-off is only applicable for the current academic year. "From the subsequent years, it would be 50 per cent once more as per the rules. The VC has informed this clearly to all," he said. Shahazan belongs to the R18 batch of senior students, who also protested last week to demand subject exemption in their exams. "We also met the VC, but his decision in the matter is still pending," he said.