BENGALURU: Colleges in the state are in a fix. On the one hand, they are grappling with final year examinations that are scheduled in September, and on the other, awaiting clarity on holding offline classes from October 1, giving them little time to prepare.
A day after TNIE confirmed from official sources, DyCM C N Ashwath Narayan on Wednesday declared that online classes would begin on September 1 for college students and offline classes from October 1.
Vice chancellors whom TNIE spoke to said they were waiting for the Central Government’s guidelines on resumption of offline classes to start preparations in this regard.
Among the major concerns is accommodating students in hostels which earlier housed several in a room. RGUHS V-C Dr S Sachidanand said they were ready with protocols for colleges affiliated to them and this will be distributed to all colleges once the government issues an order. RGUHS has 52 affiliated medical colleges, 38 dental colleges, VTU has 219 affiliated college and 3,25,000.
Symptomatic students will be tested as per protocol, social distancing, mask, sanitization, cough etiquette are already covered in the document, he said. Bangalore North University is hoping to get vacant hostel rooms after the final semester examinations. “A majority of hostel students are in the final year, and once they leave, we should be able to reduce the number of students per room by half,” said BNU Vice chancellor T D Kemparaju.
The university has put together all the standard operating procedures including those for examinations and has framed tentative guidelines for offline classes. “We will be sharing these with the parents as a confidence-building measure,” he said. At Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), focus has been on conducting examinations. While one set of exams for final year students concluded on Thursday, those for backloggers is scheduled for September.
Vice chancellor K Karisiddappa told TNIE that parents’ readiness is yet to be acquired for the new academic year offline and it will only happen after the backlog exams are over in September. “We cannot trouble parents until then,” he said.Teachers and NSS students at Bangalore Central University have been instilling confidence in students over the past few months, said Vice Chancellor Japhet.