DU’s Shaheed Sukhdev College teachers want to hold online classes from home as Covid cases rise

Amid the rising cases of coronavirus infections, the staff association of Delhi University’s Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (SSCBS) has written to the college principal to allow teachers to take classes online from home. Currently, the teachers are conducting online classes from the college campus.

As per the claims of the SSCBS staff association, online teaching was being conducted from the campus till April 6 even though the institute’s first COVID-19 positive case was diagnosed on April 1. The teachers have assured that the teaching-learning process will not be disrupted if they hold online classes from home.

Poonam Verma, principal, SSCBS, however, told indianexpress.com that the college cannot allow all the teachers to take online classes from home because of the directives from the university.

“We are providing individual rooms to every teacher to conduct online classes from campus. Those who are suspicious of having caught the virus are being advised to take quarantine leaves to get tested. Besides, all teachers who are testing positive are allowed to take medical leaves. Since the university has not rolled out an order to allow teachers to work from home, we cannot make such a provision at the college level,” Verma said.

As per the guidelines released by the DU on April 12, teaching/learning for undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) students will continue in online mode only in all the colleges, centres and departments of the university.

As per PC Joshi, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, DU, the university is only abiding by the guidelines released by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

“As per the DDMA guidelines, Group ‘A’ officers have to work from the office and teachers happen to be a part of the group. I have visited around 40 colleges in the past month, and teachers in all the colleges are being provided with an adequate environment while following standard operation procedures (SOPs). Besides, if specific teachers are unable to come to the campus for any valid reasons, the principal is free to decide at his/her end,” Joshi said.

Joshi said that teachers are also responsible for a considerable amount of administrative work and it is for the university to keep functioning properly that the teachers have to be present at the campus.