Plan reopening of colleges and univs, V-CS told
MUMBAI: Following their demand to restart physical classes, state higher and technical education minister Uday Samant on Monday asked vicechancellors (V-CS) across Maharashtra to come up with a plan on reopening universities and colleges. He also asked them to discuss the issues over the difficulties in resuming physical classes with all the teaching and non-teaching staff.
The directives were issued on Monday in a meeting with the V-CS of all the universities. The meeting called after the V-CS had last week called for the immediate resumption of colleges and universities after they met Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, who is also the chancellor of all the universities in the state.
“There are many issues that need to be addressed before resuming physical classed in colleges and universities. Hence, the higher and technical education minister asked the V-CS to come up with plans, which will be discussed before a decision is taken by the state disaster management authority, headed by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray,” said a senior state official.
The state feels that as all the students may be unable to attend physical classes, the institutes will have to conduct both offline and online lectures and teach the same subject twice in both the modes, which will add to the teaching staff’s work load, officials said.
The V-CS, however, were of the view that the government should allow both the modes for conducting lectures, but Samant directed them to discuss the matter with the staff first, said the official.the other concern is the lack of hostels to accommodate all the students if Covid-19 appropriate behaviour is to be followed. “Before Covid-19, four students used to be accommodated in one hostel room. However, now that is not possible as Covid-19 appropriate behaviour needs to be followed. We’ll have to allot one room per student to ensure social distancing is practised. But in that case, what will happen to students who are left out? We don’t have that many hostels to accommodate one student per room,” said another senior official.
The state is also contemplating the problem of Covid-19 testing for students and staff. “We have over 200,000 teaching and non-teaching staff and over four million students, and testing all of them would be a major task, but allowing physical classes without conducting Covid-19 tests would be a big risk. All these issues were discussed in detail and the vice-chancellors were asked to come up with their solutions in the plans,” said the senior official.
On Sunday, Samant had said it was time to reopen colleges. He also met the governor the same evening to apprise the latter on the state’s plan to reopen colleges and universities.
On Friday, after meeting with the V-CS, Koshyari said allowing physical classes for schools and not allowing them for colleges and universities seemed contradictory. Schools across the state, except in Mumbai, have been reopened for students from Class 5 to 12. “Universities have already started their academic year with online lectures. As the pandemic is under control, the universities should consider resuming physical classes at colleges. They can conduct classes in shifts,” the governor had said.