Over 400 students vote in favour of reopening TISS campus, forum demands plan of action

A SENIOR OFFICIAL SAID THAT THE INSTITUTE IS ASSESSING THE SITUATION BASED ON ITS INTERNAL PROCESSES

MUMBAI: More than 400 students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, have signed in favour of reopening the campus for physical classes.

In a week-long signature campaign run by the Progressive Students’ Forum (PSF)—an informal student group on campus—426 students have said they would like the institute to reopen to address the learning difficulties faced by students during online teaching. The institute shut down its campuses and switched to online education in March 2020 following the Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent lockdown.

“The TISS administration must reopen the campus with a plan of action, taking into account the feedback and participation of the student community. Election committee to be set up following which an elected Student Union is to be constituted. Reduce the fees considering the online education mode, and due to difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, students and families are in severe crisis (sic),” said the PSF in a statement issued on Thursday.

A senior official from TISS administration, on the condition of anonymity, said that irrespective of the signature campaign by students, the institute is assessing the situation based on its internal processes.

In November last year, PSF had conducted a survey of 549 students across all four campuses—Mumbai, Hyderabad, Tuljapur, Guwahati. Almost 70% of the respondents had said they wanted the campus to reopen and only 28.8% were comfortable with online education.

At that time, PSF had written to the administration demanding reopening of campuses in a phase-wise manner, with guidelines for attendance and how to conduct classes while maintaining social distancing norms.