BENGALURU: The timing for commencement of classes in government degree colleges in the state will be revised again from this academic year. What earlier used to be 9 am, will now be fixed somewhere between 9 am and 10 am, to make commute to colleges convenient for students.The Department of Collegiate Education revised the timings following requests from students and members of faculties from rural areas, who had complained about lack of transportation facilities early in the morning. The change will be implemented from the current academic year itself. Principals of the colleges concerned have been asked to fix the time and have also been told to schedule it between 9 am and 10 am and not beyond that. The department has issued an official circular on July 16 in this regard.
In July 2017, a similar circular was issued by the department, where the time for commencing classes was fixed at 8 am. Later, following objections from students, teachers and principals of colleges, it was revised to 9 am. However, colleges which are working in double shifts have been asked to continue with the earlier timing of 8 am. The department has suggested to keep the same timing for laboratory classes also.
The latest circular reads, "The timings of the government degree colleges in the state have been revised and principals of the colleges are advised to fix the time between 9 am and 10 am. This is following the requests made by students, teachers and principals of rural colleges where they mentioned about difficulty in reaching colleges in time due to lack of transportation facilities."
However, the circular clearly mentioned that, "This change in timing should not affect the activities like National Social Service (NSS), National Cadet Corps (NCC), skill training, special classes and sports activities."
City colleges may face problems
The new circular may cause problems for students in colleges located in Bengaluru. "We have adjusted to the 9 am timing and changing it will affect our complete routine," said a student of Government Arts and Science College, Bengaluru.Another student feels that 9 am was the perfect timing as there isn't much traffic at that time. "If it is revised again to 10 am, we may experience traffic jams. We request the department to consider restricting the change in timings only to districts where it is needed and not for cities like Bengaluru," said another student.