Gujarat education dept issues guidelines for reopening of colleges, varsities

The Gujarat state education department on Friday issued a government resolution (GR) on guidelines for reopening colleges and universities from November 23.  

On Wednesday, the state government had announced that schools for classes 9 to12 and all colleges in the state would reopen from November 23, nine months after they were closed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

According to the GR, attendance of students would not be mandatory and each institute has to ask students to furnish a letter of consent from parents for attending the offline classes and all activities have to be undertaken as per the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines issued on November 5.

As per the requirement of a course and keeping in mind the number of students, institutes have to fix the class strength. “The classes can be either divided into two equal halves or in three sections of one-third strength in each. The college principals or university vice-chancellors have to decide the class strength. One batch of students will be called for three days while the other groups for the remaining three days,” the notification states.

The guidelines, which apply to all the government and private universities and colleges, further states that if hostel facilities are resumed, only one student should be allowed per room.

“We have majorly implemented the UGC guidelines to keep uniformity among all institutes across the state,” Principal Secretary (education) Anju Sharma said.

As per the state government’s decision, in the first phase all postgraduate, PhD, M Phil courses, medical and paramedical courses, and final-year graduate courses will resume on November 23.

The UGC standard operating procedures (SOPs), implemented by the state education department, state final-year students of graduate courses may be allowed to join for academic and placement purposes, as per the decision of the head of the institution, while strictly adhering to the norm of not more than 50 per cent of the total students are present at any point of time.

Students can also opt to attend classes online for which institutions have to provide online study material and access to e-resources. “Institutions should have a plan ready for such international students who could not join the programme due to international travel restrictions or visa-related issues. Online teaching-learning arrangements should also be made for them,” the guidelines state.

Also, teaching hours in a day may be extended, as per requirements of the institution where the six-day schedule are followed, so that classes can be conducted in phases and the seating arrangement made keeping in view the requirements of physical distancing.