An ap-parent change in approach
Over the past year, the institute has brought along a flurry of updates to its websites. Fee portals were streamlined, the academic website for viewing courses offered was revamped, attendance records were centralised on the CollPoll app (now Digiicampus), and a new website was created with parents in mind. The parent portal, accessed at https://parentconnect.iitm.ac.in/, requires the student’s roll number, date of birth, and an OTP sent to the registered parent mobile number. Once inside, parents have access to general information about their ward (including their gradecard) and general insti information like the calendar and timetable.
While Admin has not issued any statement about their rationale behind these changes, this introduction, coupled with the policy on attendance (where parents are notified of every time their ward misses a class), paints a clear picture of the administration’s new approach to improving student engagement with academics. If the heavy punishments of the new and improved P grade could not convince a student to attend lectures and improve their academic focus, parental pressure is being called upon as an additional effort in the same direction.
How necessary is this guiding hand? : An Opinion
This new regime touches the core of what a university education represents: a negotiated space between structure and freedom. The institute’s philosophy has long been to prepare students for working life, where they must manage schedules and priorities autonomously. The current shift, however, risks substituting that preparation with a continuation of school-like handholding. The issue only exacerbates when we consider how far removed parents are from insti life. The few data points the attendance emails and CGPA provide to them serve only to create pressure and worry. Constant badgering from the system is only bound to resentment among students, not responsibility.
The earlier rules with W grades and decentralised attendance added a human element to the attendance and grading process. Professors would show concern, give a small reprimand, and refrain from giving W’s in most cases. Automated attendance grades, in attempting to bring parents into this equation, have pushed aside the professors’ influence and limited the accommodations they can provide students.
The notion of freedom that the admin seems to be recalibrating through stricter curfews for freshies and heavier punishments for attendance lapses suggests a belief that total, unstructured liberty can be detrimental. The question is whether this digital tether fosters responsible independence or simply creates better-accounted-for dependency. Are students learning to manage their priorities because they value them, or because they fear a text message home?
On one hand, the administration’s concerns are well founded. The average freshie receives nearly 100 smails a day regarding club and event announcements. How anyone is meant to manage time to keep up with all that and the demanding first-year academics is a mystery yet to be solved. All these efforts are made in good faith to ensure that academics are not lost in this clutter as they transition from regimented factory/school life to the paralyzing freedom of the institute.
The intended impact is clear: better attendance, higher academic focus, and informed parents. The unintended consequences are murkier. It may hurt the most those students already struggling with mental health, familial expectations, or academic adjustment, by adding a layer of surveillance to their stress. It fundamentally alters the student-parent dynamic, potentially making every low grade or missed class a domestic event, potentially stifling the crucial development of self-advocacy and independent problem-solving.
And we go back to school?
The new regime takes us back to school. Short of a monthly parent – facad meet, we are back to the same levels of parental oversight to enforce responsibility and commitment to academics. In its quest to ensure students do not drown in the deep end of freedom, insti has installed a monitoring buoy. Whether this buoy will be seen as a life-saving guide or an anchor restricting movement is left to be seen not only within the walls of the campus, but also in the intimate space of family WhatsApp chats and phone calls. The ultimate grade on this policy will be written in the complex log-book of student well-being, academic performance, and the fragile, essential growth into adulthood.
Written by: Anirvin Srivatsan
Edited by: Meenakshi Rajeev
Design by: Adithya Thej A
