Many working people take IIT-Madras first online course – Times of India

CHENNAI: As many as 8,154 students have enrolled for the first ever online degree programme — BSc in programming and data science — offered by IIT Madras. The course is to begin in January 2021.
As many as 1,666 (20%) of the students are working professionals from IT, banking, manufacturing, finance, law, healthcare, marketing and other sectors and 54% of the candidates are less than 20 years old.
A total of 1,593 learners were from arts, science and commerce backgrounds while 3,450 had an engineering background. As many as 30,276 candidates had applied for the course and were given access to the course’s first month classes. Of them, 20,396 learners with a minimum required average assignment scores were called to appear for a qualifier exam on November 22 and 8,154 students were qualified for admissions.
IIT-M is happy to welcome the first batch of students to the foundation level BSc programme. IIT-M is doing everything possible to give a great learning experience to the students, a release from the institute said. “The courses are delivered through a state-of-theart online portal. Students are given the opportunity to participate in live sessions to clarify their doubts. The exams are conducted in-person so that the academic rigor of the programme is maintained,” Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director of IIT-M, said in the release.
Andrew Thangaraj, professor in-charge, IIT-M online degree programme, said the course gives a lot of flexibility to students to learn at their own pace. “There are three different stages – foundation, diploma and degree. Students can choose their own pace while registering for courses and, upon completion, they will receive a certificate, diploma or a degree from IIT-Madras,” he said.