NPTEL companion

Exam dates: July-December 2026

Two sessions on each date (9 am-12 noon, 2 pm-5 pm). Your course page prints your own course's date.

Source: NPTEL Timelines and Guidelines, July 2026 (a document NPTEL publishes and links from nptel.ac.in), read 23 Oct 2026.

Next semester: January 2027

• Enrolment opens 13 Nov 2026; exam registration opens 15 Dec 2026.
• The January 2027 timelines document did not print an exam fee when we read it.
• Only a tentative course list was out (names, teachers, institutes, length); course ids and per-course dates were not. Tentative course list

Source: NPTEL Timelines, January 2027, read 23 Oct 2026.

Exam fee

• ₹1000 per exam (July 2026 semester).
• SC/ST or PwD candidates (50% waiver): ₹500.
• Candidates who are both SC/ST and PwD: ₹250.
• Enrolling in a course is free; the fee is for the proctored certification exam only.

Source: NPTEL Timelines and Guidelines, July 2026.

Pass rule and certificate

• To get a certificate, the NPTEL FAQ asks for both an average assignment score of at least 40 out of 100 and a final exam score of at least 40 out of 100. (“Average assignment score (out of 100) >= 40 AND Final exam score ( out of 100) >= 40”) source
• 25% of the final marks come from the assignments and 75% from the proctored exam. source
• The FAQ adds that the pass criteria also depend on the course; each course page prints its own rule (shown on every course page here). (“The pass criteria also depends on the courses.”) source
• Certificates are e-certificates; NPTEL issues no hard copy. source

Credit transfer

• Whether NPTEL counts towards your degree is up to your own college or university — the FAQ says to check with them. (“It is upto your college/university how much credit should be given for each course.”) source
• The FAQ recommends 3, 2 and 1 credits for 12-, 8- and 4-week courses; the course pages print 4, 3 and 2 credit points for the courses listed here. The two NPTEL pages differ — your university's decision is what counts. (“For 12 weeks/8 weeks/4 weeks courses, NPTEL recommends 3/2/1 credits respectively.”) source
• UGC's SWAYAM regulations, 2021 (notified 25 March 2021) let a university take up to 40% of a programme's courses in a semester through SWAYAM, which includes NPTEL; your university decides which courses it accepts. (“allow upto 40% (forty per cent.) of the total courses being offered in a particular programme in a semester”) source

The UGC SWAYAM credit rule, step by step

The 25 courses with the most learners enrolled (July-Dec 2026)

We read the “Learners enrolled” number on the course page of all 1,054 courses in NPTEL's July 2026 course list on 23 Oct 2026 and kept the top 25. The numbers are that day's, not live.