In a major decision the Visvesvaraya Technological University has decided to modify the concepts of ‘critical year’ and ‘year back’ concepts, that were introduced in 2010, to help engineering students get their degrees, Indian Express said. This decision was taken at a meeting of the executive committee on Tuesday and will be implemented from the 2017-18 academic year.
According to previous rules, students who were not able to clear first and second semester subjects were denied admission to the fifth semester. Registrar of the university H N Jagannatha Reddy said that students are eligible for the final year even if they do not clear in all second-year papers. However, they can appear in exams only if they pass papers as per earlier eligibility criteria. The current internal and theory, which has marks ratio of 20:80 marks ratio has been revised to 40:60. This step is likely to help about 20,000 candidates, the paper added.
This decision had come at a time a number of student organisation were protesting against the university demanding the rule to be scrapped as the VTU delayed the announcement of exam and revaluation results. As per The Hindu, students felt that they had to appear in about 16 exams in three months as the varsity delayed revaluation results of odd semester examinations.