“The academic council of Anna University approved the absolute grading system for all the UG, PG students of non-autonomous colleges under regulations 2025,” said a circular from the university’s registrar to all principals.It further directed autonomous colleges to follow the absolute grading system for evaluation and passing of results for all the UG, PG students who will join in the academic year 2026-27. Students who score 91 to 100 marks will get an ‘S’ grade, meaning outstanding performance with respect to course learning objectives. “The student exhibits original and creative thinking, and demonstrates the ability to analyse critically and synthesise information,” the circular said. “There is a huge variation in the performance of students in the colleges. Several thousand students appear for each paper, and top performers are not getting the grades they deserve,” an official from the university said.“A student who scored 200 out of 200 cut-off marks and a student who scored 100 out of 200 cut-off marks are writing the same exam. We think the absolute grading will reflect their performance more accurately,” the official added.The university introduced a new grade for engineering students. According to the decision, students who score 56 to 60 marks will get a C+ grade, whereas students who score 50 to 55 marks will get a ‘C’ grade. As per the existing system, students who score 50 to 60 marks will get the ‘C’ grade.Professors said the relative grading system will work well among a small number of students. “Students who scored 91 marks are also not able to get the A+ grade if there are more students scoring above 95 marks out of 100. So, absolute grading may help top scorers to get their grades according to their marks,” a principal from an autonomous engineering college said. However, some principals said they expect the number of top grades to fall in the absolute grading system.
