MUMBAI: IIT Bombay’s act of sending freshers’ attendance data to oldsters has not gone down effectively with the previous, who say that such an motion curbs their freedom and will put pointless strain on them. This suggestions has made it to a brand new report revealed by ‘Insight’, the official scholar media physique of the institute, on its portal on December 3.
Don’t ship attendance data to our dad and mom, say IIT-B freshers
The initiative to mandatorily report college students’ attendance and ship bi-weekly reviews to their dad and mom or guardians was among the many a number of insurance policies launched by the institute in 2023 to scale back stress amongst college students, notably first-year undergraduates. Nonetheless, it was carried out solely this educational yr on account of sure glitches. The primary attendance report was despatched to oldsters on September 26 and the subsequent one on October 16.
‘Insight’ explored the rationale behind this advice by means of interviews with professor Kishore Chatterjee, co-convenor of the Tutorial Stress Mitigation Committee (ASMC), professor P Sunthar, head ASMC, professor Bhaskaran Raman, head SAFE (Sensible, Authenticated, Quick Exams), and the scholar representatives who had been concerned within the course of. Its report states that sending an attendance report might create variations between dad and mom and youngsters. ‘Potential restrictions or monitoring from the parents’ facet could restrict the scholars’ inclusion into the IIT-B tradition in all facets aside from lecturers,’ it provides.
As talked about earlier, attendance started being recorded by means of the SAFE app within the final educational yr however was not despatched instantly to oldsters, because the software program infrastructure was not prepared, and some college students had been dealing with points in registering for programs and marking attendance on the app. In 2024-25, due to this fact, the workforce improved the interface and launched another choice viz ‘Did not mark attendance’. This feature is relevant when the scholar is just not current on the lecture. ‘Verification failed’ is when the try and mark and confirm attendance has failed.
The ‘Insight’ report identified the ineffectiveness of the initiative. ‘Although we have information that the attendance records are sent to parents at regular intervals, we are unaware of any procedure for intervention that the administration has planned, once it finds that the attendance of a student has gone below a threshold,’ it says. The report factors out that presently, the Scholar Mentorship Program Coordinators (SMPCs) and people in control of FacAds (an attendance system) will not be knowledgeable in regards to the attendance information, leaving them unable to do something about low attendance.
In conclusion, the Perception report states, ‘Implementing a systematic method that identifies early warning signs and ensuring timely interventions can significantly aid freshers in their integration into the IIT Bombay community. This proactive approach can lead to a more supportive academic culture, where every student feels valued and can grow as an individual.’ The report additionally quotes Chatterjee saying, ‘Missing classes may be an early sign that a student may be struggling to integrate into the IIT system.’
Shireesh Kedare, director of IIT Bombay, averted commenting on the attendance coverage, saying that the institute believed that the primary drawback was methods to make the teaching-learning course of extra thrilling. “Attendance could just be one of the symptoms of this root problem,” he stated. “We want to bring in reforms to enthuse students about learning. We are working on possible solutions and are taking inputs from students, faculty and even alumni. We have been working on this for the last five months.”