Schools & colleges gear up to reopen after 20 months

kolkata: The schools, colleges and university authorities were busy on Monday with the last minute preparations before reopening the establishments for students from Tuesday after a gap of nearly 20 months. Cleaning of the campuses and sanitisation of the entire campus including the classrooms and seating arrangements as per COVID-19 protocols has been given top priority by the educational institutions. All educational institutions have remained closed since March 2020 as a preventive measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 virus.

All students of a particular college or university are not attending classes in physical mode as it would not be possible to adhere to COVID-19 safety measures.

"The undergraduate (UG) students of the 5th semester are coming for theory-based physical classes as well as laboratory classes. The third semester students are coming for practical classes. In case of post graduate (PG) courses, only third semester students are coming for practical classes. We have ensured that all the students who are turning up physically have been vaccinated fully. Hostel entry will also be allowed only for those who have been vaccinated. The first semester students will not have to attend classes physically. There will be online classes for the rest of the students who are not attending physically,"Madhumanjari Mandal, principal of Scottish Church College said.

Maulana Azad College has made arrangements for all students except first year students to attend physical classes. The admission process for first year, both in UG and PG courses, are continuing. "We are ensuring that students attending physical classes are fully vaccinated. There are only 2 to 3 students who have not yet received the jab. They have been asked to attend with a RT-PCR negative report," Subhasis Dutta, principal of the college said.

Jadavpur University will call one year students from UG and another from PG in the arts faculty.

The respective departments will decide which year students will come first. In the Science faculty, UG second year and PG first year students will come first. In the engineering faculty, PG first year students will come first. UG 2nd, 3rd and 4th year will continue to have classes online. All Phd and M.Phil students will, however, come to campus. Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee, vice-chancellor of Calcutta University said that only 3rd semester PG students, who have already received double vaccine doses, will be attending classes in physical mode.

In case of Rabindra Bharati University, all M.Phil and Phd scholars will come for physical classes. Students of 3rd semester will come to attend classes of the compulsory elective subject. Classes for other core subjects will be held online. "The BA 5th semester classes will be held in offline mode from Tuesday," a senior RBU official said. Wearing masks for all concerned is compulsory.