PUNE: College campuses in the city reopened their gates to happy faces on Monday, after they were closed for over 10 months due to the
Covid-19 lockdown.
Around 20% of the
students attended
classes as most
colleges that reopened said they are restarting their offline lectures phase-wise so that campuses are not over-crowded.
Meanwhile,
online education will continue and a blended model of education would be adopted for the coming months, college managements said.
Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce started classes for the master’s in statistics and master’s in science (computers) degree second year with practical sessions. The classes for postgraduate commerce and e-commerce were also started on Monday with 50% students.
Principal Rajendra Zunjarrao said,“We have also continued the online lecture platform for students who are not able to make it for physical classes. The attendance for practicals is nearly 80-90% but for lectures it was only about 20-30% attendance on Monday.”
St Mira’s College for Women did not reopen on Monday as they decided to reopen a day later from Tuesday onwards. The principal of the college Gulshan Gidwani said, “The
Covid test reports of the faculty had not been received till Monday so we could not reopen. The labs were all of a sudden flooded for tests so it took time. But we will be ready to reopen on Tuesday.”
The city unit of the
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) staged a ‘Namaste Students’ campaign and welcomed them with dhol-tasha in different colleges in the city. The students’ union also celebrated the reopening at the
Savitribai Phule Pune University.
Head of the AISSMS College of Engineering, Pune, V R Patil, said, “Being a faculty member, watching students around the campus with enthusiasm was very appreciable. Students from the first year department were very energetic. The lectures were conducted in both online and offline mode with 50% capacity. Teaching and learning process will improve in the forthcoming days.”
Akhil Joshi, assistant professor of the mechanical department, JSPM’s Rajarshi Shahu College of Engineering said RSCOE has commenced offline college for students from Monday.
“The staggered conduction of physical practicals is complemented with online lectures in a blended learning environment. We are hopeful and positive that full classes will resume soon and are confident of taking precautions and maintaining standards for the same. It is in the interest of students of Engineering that physical classes resume,” Joshi said.