A recent internal survey at Jadavpur University (JU) has revealed that more than 40% of students in 9 out of 16 engineering streams are struggling with backlogs – meaning they’ve failed in one or more subjects.
Among them, Civil Engineering has the highest failure rate, with 75% students having backlogs. It’s followed by Electrical Engineering (68%) and Metallurgical & Material Engineering (61%).
JU is known to be one of the top engineering colleges in West Bengal, so this high failure rate has raised serious concerns. In response, the university set up a committee in May last year to understand the reasons behind this issue.
The committee, which included teachers and students, surveyed 1,052 students and 137 faculty members. The report was recently submitted.
Key Findings:
- Poor attendance in theory classes is a major problem. Out of 65 students in a class, only 20–25 attend regularly.
- Many faculty members suggested that marks should be given for attendance to encourage students to show up.
- Some students have as many as 15 backlogs, mostly in theory papers.
- 150 final-year students still have multiple subjects to clear, which also affects their job placements.
- The academic calendar is poorly managed – results are published late, and supplementary exams clash with regular classes.
- First-year students are especially under pressure because classes at JU start late (October or November) compared to central institutes (August), leaving them less time to adjust and study.
What Professors & Students Say:
- Prof. Partha Bhattacharya (Civil Engineering): Students skip theory classes, don’t understand the syllabus well, and lose interest.
- Prof. Saswati Mazumdar (former Electrical Engineering professor): Students have become more disengaged after the pandemic.
- Prof. Arindam Sil (Electrical Engineering): Delayed session starts due to WBJEE counselling make it tough for students to keep up.
- Students complain that results come too late, often during the next semester, making it hard to prepare for supplementary exams while managing new subjects.
The report suggests that to fix this growing problem, JU needs to enforce attendance rules, publish results on time, and improve the academic calendar to help students perform better.
