Chandigarh colleges reopen to poor attendance
The higher education department last week took a call on reopening the colleges from November 23 for final-year students of undergraduate and postgraduate courses for academic and placement purposes.
Not many students showed up on Monday as some city colleges reopened for final year classes for the first time after the Covid-19 lockdown.
Some institutes were expected to open after sanitisation processes were complete in accordance with safety protocols .
The higher education department last week took a call on reopening the colleges from November 23 for final-year students of undergraduate and postgraduate courses for academic and placement purposes.
However, online classes of all the batches will continue.
Professor Kamlesh Bajaj, principal, Post Graduate Government College, Sector 46, said, “Classes which did not have many students on the rolls and had practical subjects are resuming. However, there was not much of a response from the students and we are using both offline and online modes of teaching.”
Another principal of a city college who did not want to be named said the attendance on the first day was poor.
The decision to reopen the colleges came after the University Grants Commission (UGC) earlier this month issued guidelines for colleges and universities across the nation to restart classes after consultations with state governments.
Last week the higher education department had directed the colleges to develop their own standard operating procedures (SOPs) and adopt UGC guidelines issued on November 5 according to their needs and conditions.
In an official communique issued on Monday, the UT higher education department said that colleges which had reopened on the first day were being sanitised and protocols were being worked out according to the guidelines of the UGC and the Chandigarh administration for the safety of students.
“In some colleges the online house examinations are also being conducted during this week. The regular physical classes of final year undergraduate and postgraduate students will be functional by the end of this week,” the communique read.