The teaching faculty members of Government Arts and Science College in Sivakasi have heaved a sigh of relief after the State government on Thursday postponed its decision to reopen college for all undergraduate and post-graduate classes on November 16.
“It is next to impossible to accommodate all 1,800 students in the inadequate number of classrooms in our college,” said a senior teaching faculty. The college has 12 UG courses and five PG courses in Arts and Science streams. While the college required 46 classrooms, it has only 17 classrooms and hence it was functioning in two shifts to accommodate all the students
While arts stream functions in the morning shift, the science stream works in the evening shift. “As we are already facing shortage of classrooms, how can we provide ample space in the classrooms for the students to maintain minimum physical distancing norms,” he wondered.
Even if the new building under construction with nine classrooms is completed, the shortage of classrooms for all the 17 courses will still continue. “This is the case with many Government Arts and Science Colleges in the State,” he said.
The college with more than 60% of girls has very limited number of toilets. “With only two temporary sanitary workers in the college, frequent washing of toilets through the day is also not possible,” he said.
A good number of students commute to the college by bus from nearby places such as Watrap and Srivilliputtur and many of them travel for more than 20 km. “The buses are so packed to the full in the morning that physical distancing is just impossible. Thereby students living nearby who come by bicycles will also face the threat of getting infected,” he said.
Pandemic is a new experience. “We ourselves do not know how to handle the situation,” he added.
New college
Given the infrastructure handicap, it is only better that the regular classroom activity is introduced in phases so that the precautionary measures issued by the Health Department could be implemented in letter and spirit. In case of the newly-announced Government Arts and Science College in Srivilliputtur, it is worse as the officials have proposed to run it in a portion of a school till the building is constructed.
