Specific Academic Regulations of BPUT - Clarification

BIJU PATNAIK UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, ORISSA
ROURKELA

Notice No. BPUT-RKL/610/09 dated April 25, 2009

NOTICE
[A] SOME FACTS ON SUPPLEMENTARY EXAMINATIONS
[1] A total year of 365 days is broken down as follows for the calendar of activities of BPUT.

(i) Each Semester-90 days per Sem. 2 x 90 = 180 days

(ii) Sundays = 52 days

(iii) Government & other Holidays= 25 days

(iv) Exam duration for Odd & Even Sems.(30x2) = 60 days

(v) Semester-break after Odd Semester = 07 days

(vi) Summer Vacation (May 21 – July 07) = 41 days

(should be a minimum of 45 days

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Total= 365 days
[2] The Even-Semester regular examination as well as Supplementary examinations were of much shorter duration with the Year-Back system, as a student was not allowed to go to a higher year without clearing the papers of lower years (e.g. one could not go to 3rd year without clearing all First Year subjects; similarly, one could not go to 4th year without clearing all papers of second year).
[3] With the present system, a student can have any number of back papers, is still promoted to the higher years and is allowed to clear back papers of all previous semesters. Therefore, one cannot have overlapping examinations, as far as possible.
[4] Consequently, under the present system, the duration of regular semester examinations is very high and accommodating the supplementary examinations will make the system unsustainable. Attempts are being made to cut down the evaluation-time drastically by requesting colleges to send more teachers for evaluation.
[5] Once the Year Back was removed, the only way to run the system was to introduce the Special Examinations after the 8th Semester. Now, all back papers from 3rd semester to 8th semester, are included in the Special Examinations. However, as wanted by the students, this item (supplementary exams.) would once again be deliberated at the Academic Council Meeting of April 25th.

[B] SOME FACTS ON THE ‘NFT’ SYSTEM
[1] Any student getting lower than 4.5 SGPA (Semester Grade Point Average) in 3 consecutive (1st, 2nd and 3rd) semesters is declared ‘Not Fit for Technical education’ (NFT) and has to quit BPUT at the second year. A student can avoid the above situation if:
He passes in only 2-3 subjects out of 18 theory subjects (in 3 semesters) for which he is getting 30 chances.

He should attend all the internal tests, laboratories/ sessionals.
[2] The students who face the risk of quitting under NFT after the 3rd semester (Second year), are those who opted for promotion from 1st year to 2nd year, through an undertaking, that if they do not fulfill the 4.5 condition, they would be prepared to leave.
Several students who were admitted (in 2007) along with the above category of students, opted to stay back and repeat the first year knowing that getting promoted to the 3rd semester involved the risk of quitting. Some of these students have gone to the High Court already against any change of NFT-Rule (one such case of Orissa High Court WPC 6276/2009).
[3] The present NFT system may affect less than 250 (two hundred fifty) students out of around 16000 students of the same batch & from a total of about 62,000 students in the BPUT’s engineering streams.
[4] BPUT’s promotion system perhaps represents one of the most lenient of systems in the entire country amongst the state level technical universities and any further dilution would bring down the reputation of BPUT; this would adversely affect the placement of our graduates.
[5] The University has convened its Academic Council Meeting on April 25, 2009 to discuss the above situation. Incidentally, the Academic Council had met recently on March 28, 2009 and after deliberating on all the issues relating to NFT, had withdrawn the NFT in the 3rd and 4th years. It had also included all the second year subjects as well, in the Special Examination held after the 8th semester.
REGISTRAR I/C.