Before rush, DU has task cut out, from hostels to PGs to canteens

According to the university’s order issued Wednesday, offline classes will resume from February 17 for all courses. Administrators across colleges said with this, they will stop online classes since it is untenable to sustain hybrid teaching-learning with their large classroom sizes.

“It was as much an announcement for us as it was for students,” said a principal, who did not want to be named, adding that principals of colleges were attending a university meeting on how and when colleges should be reopened when the announcement was made.

Kirori Mal College principal Vibha Chauhan said the first thing the college will be working on is allotting hostel seats.

“We need to quickly conduct a meeting of the hostel committee, decide how many hostel seats will be offered, allot seats as per merit and put up their names on the websites. The second thing we’ll have to do is issue a tender for our canteen which has been closed as there was no point in keeping it running. Since it will take around two weeks to get it running, we can set up a kiosk with tea, coffee and snacks in the meantime. We’ll also have to rush up a few things we were in the midst of, such as renovating the library and issuing new smart college ID cards,” she said.

The college authorities will also collect information on how many students are vaccinated and will try to utilise some of its larger rooms — seminar rooms, auditorium, common rooms — for classes. Several DU colleges do not have any hostel at all. At Aryabhatta College, principal Manoj Sinha said that teachers have been tasked with helping students out.

“We have 2,400 students in the college and we’ve divided them in a way that around 40 students have one teacher mentor each. I have asked these teachers to begin contacting students and ask them about their problems. I have also asked staff to get in touch with PGs nearby and encourage them to start full services, including meals,” he said.

Some administrators also raised the possibility of new expenses. “We have 7,000 students in our college. Even if 3,000-5,000 students come, our expenditure for sanitisation will be high and it is an expense for which there was no provision earlier. Frequently refilling sanitiser stands will cost and it’s not a planned expenditure. We can manage it for a few months but it is something we will have to keep doing for the foreseeable future, so we and funding agencies need to plan accordingly,” said Ramjas College principal Manoj Khanna.