‘Colleges in remote areas face internet issues’

the pandemic changed the education paradigm. Dr Sunil Khosla, Principal, Baba Balraj Panjab University Constituent College, in a conversation with Aakanksha N Bhardwaj said the availability of internet and proper connectivity was the major challenge staff had to face while connecting with the students online.

How many students are coming at present?

As per Panjab University guidelines, there is no physical attendance of the students unlike other university colleges, but online classes are on.

What challenges did you face amid the pandemic?

Since our college is situated in a rural area, the biggest challenge that came our way was the connectivity with the students. Because of networking issues, the students as well as the teachers faced problem reaching out to each other. Also, many students didn’t even have mobile phones, so, they found it hard to reach us. But still, we managed to meet the challenge successfully with and the issues were resolved with time. Today, the syllabus of every subject has been finished and everything is back on track.

Has the pandemic affected admissions?

Not at all, we have a total of 870 students at present. Online and offline admissions were done as per the university’s guidelines. We followed the admission procedure by adopting full precautions like distancing and sanitising the premises from time to time.

What about the practical teaching?

We have computer science as a practical subject in BCA and BA courses in our college. Teachers ensured that they provided practical knowledge to the students even during online mode. However, lab online teaching could not replace lab work, but our teachers did their best to make sure that students didn’t miss out on practical work. Also, the students who didn’t own a laptop or a mobile phone, they had to face trouble understanding practicals digitally.

What preparations will you make if the university allows colleges to resume classes?

If we get orders for physical attendance from the university, we will have to first check the ordered instructions. When the instructions are out, only then we will be able to determine the steps and course of action to be taken. We will have to see if we receive the instructions to start the college in a phased manner and with restricted number of students.

As an expert, what’s in store for education in times ahead?

I can see that our dependence will remain on online teaching for a long time. Physical classes won’t be possible till the time this pandemic is dealt with. The focus will remain in rural areas where the problem related to technology arises. But one thing I would like to mention that whatever problems we faced amid the pandemic, our university helped in overcoming those.

Do students still share any concerns with you?

Yes. Since the students are not economically well-off, they shared that many are deprived of gadgets. Some students brought new phones or laptops, while some said they did not have any means to purchase new smartphones.