CHENNAI: After a break of eight months, higher education institutions in the State reopened for final years postgraduate students and researchers on Wednesday. In-person classes will resume for medical colleges and final-year undergraduate students of arts and science, engineering, agriculture, fisheries and veterinary programmes in all colleges and universities from December 7.
The reopening would apply only for researchers and final years students of postgraduate courses in science and for technology courses. Similarly, hostels would be opened from December 2 only for the above students as long as colleges follow the Standard Operating Procedures which would be issued by the government later.
While colleges were held following safety protocols, many students struggled to reach on time.”My bus got cancelled due to the cyclone. I have been stuck in Kochi and was unable to make it to the reopening,” said N Sethu, a final year MPhil student from the University of Madras.
Another student who lives in the outskirts of Chennai said that she waited for over an hour for her usual bus to show up and reached her college late. “There have been some timing and frequency changes I was unaware of with respect to buses,” said a researcher from IIT-M. She added that while the majority of the classes or meetings are held online, researchers need to go to college to only access the labs.
473 seats allotted
Chennai: On Wednesday, the Selection Committee of Directorate of Medical Education allotted a total 473 MBBS and BDS seats. According to data shared by the Selection Committee, 499 candidates were called for counselling, among them 485 attended. On the day 431 MBBS seats in government medical colleges and 41 in self-financing medical colleges were allotted. One BDS seat was allotted in government dental college. Further 10 candidates were wait-listed.