IIT, IIM grading leaves PSUs in fix
The country's centres of excellence, mentored by foreign governments, have graded their graduates based on a Western system-the cumulative grade point (CGP) index-for several years. Now a section is moving to a more conventional marking system, based on percentage, after Indian public sector undertakings have asked the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management to provide an equivalent of their grades by giving percentages.
Each institute, autonomous in nature, has its own grading system. Most IITs award a cumulative performance index on a scale of one to 10 but IIT-Kanpur does not award odd-number grades. And, among the IIMs, those in Ahmedabad and Bangalore award a CGPA on a scale of one to four-like American universities-but IIM-Calcutta grades its students on a range of one to nine points.
This, according to PSUs, creates a lot of confusion and hence the move to ask for a more conventional grading system.
However, just like the current varied marking system, the decision to move to percentages too has elicited divergent responses among India's premier educational institutes. Some are internally drawing up an equivalence and will publish that on the report card. Other institutes don't feel the need to carry out such an exercise.
Professor in charge of placements at IIT-Bombay Ravi Sinha said, "Each PSU has its own human resource (HR) policy and they want us to provide our grade equivalence for the minimum threshold level, which they can interpret.'' So, IIT-Bombay, "keeping in mind students' interest,'' in its senate, decided to flesh out an equivalence so that a "system of conversion equivalence should emerge from reliable data as well as a clear and unambiguous basis to stand the test of time''.
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