PATNA: Higher education in Bihar suffered a major setback in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Lakhs of students enrolled in different colleges and universities stopped going to their institutions.
Both the chancellor’s secretariat as well the state higher education department reacted positively and managed to ensure continuity of teaching-learning online. While some institutions introduced conducting online classes for a limited number of students through various e-conferencing tools, others started uploading e-content of different subjects to their websites.
Academics, however, felt that online education benefited only a microscopic section of students. “In a state where the internet penetration is limited to only 34% of its total population and that, too, mostly in urban centres, how could students attend online classes. Those who had shifted to their native homes in rural areas following the closure of their institutions were deprived of the technologies and, therefore, could not take any benefit of online education,” remarked Patna University (PU) English department’s former head Shiv Jatan Thakur.
As the pandemic taught teachers and students to be tech-friendly, a new culture of ‘webinar’ in place of seminar emerged in the universities and online PhD viva voce examination and PhD course work were also introduced in Patna University. But, these webinars could benefit only limited number of academics.
The academic calendars of the universities in Bihar went topsy-turvy owing to inordinate delay in conducting examinations of the last session and admission of students in the current academic session.
The pending undergraduate and postgraduate examinations of different universities were delayed at least by six months due to the pandemic. Even PU could complete its pending undergraduate examinations of the last session only recently. Similarly, admission to the undergraduate classes in different universities is yet to be completed.
PU has almost completed its admission in undergraduate courses and started admissions in the postgraduate courses, said PU students’ welfare dean N K Jha. Other universities are busy completing the admission process.
The pandemic is also likely to affect the government efforts for increasing the state’s gross enrolment ratio in higher education. According to informed sources, seats in the undergraduate classes of different colleges across the state have remained vacant as sufficient number of students did not turn up for admission this year. The state education department is likely to inquire from the universities about the status of students’ enrolment in different courses in the current academic session, said higher education director Rekha Kumari. The department would try to find out the reason behind lower enrolment, she added.
The year also witnessed some positive developments in higher education. While the academics hailed the various provisions of the Centre’s New Education Policy. Similarly, approval of new statutes for the appointment of assistant professors by the chancellor and subsequent advertisement of as many as 4638 posts of assistant professors in different universities by the state university service panel provided much relief to the teacher-starved colleges and universities. Appointment of altogether 14 VCs and pro-VCs in different universities in September also ended the state of ad hocism prevailing in the universities.