Colleges reopen, but classes empty

Almost all campuses throughout the State had been abandoned and lecture rooms noticed solely a handful of scholars in attendance on Tuesday, when diploma, diploma and engineering schools re-opened after a niche of eight months.

Students, in addition to submitting consent kinds from mother and father and COVID-19 unfavorable certificates, additionally needed to sanitise their palms and endure well being screenings earlier than attending classes. However, the precautionary measures put in place as safeguards towards COVID-19 did little to allay the fears of scholars and oldsters.

In some instances, lecturers who reported to work didn’t conduct classes as no pupil had turned up. There had been a number of cases of lectures being held for one pupil.

At Maharani’s Arts, Commerce and Management College For Women, a couple of academics held classes for a single pupil. A ultimate 12 months B.A. pupil mentioned that she was the one particular person within the classroom together with her professor. “I was keen to attend class after so many months at home. I travelled for one and a half hour by public transport to college. When I saw that I was the only student, I thought the class would be cancelled, but the lecturer conducted it for me,” she mentioned.

At Government First Grade College, Raichur, just one fifth semester B.Com pupil amongst 1,333 ultimate 12 months college students reported to campus. Mallanagouda, principal, mentioned that 26 lecturers got here to work, but just one lecturer took a category.

K.R. Venugopal, Vice-Chancellor, Bangalore University, mentioned that they’d lower than 3% attendance within the departments, whereas affiliated schools had an attendance of 5-10%. He nonetheless mentioned that they anticipate the attendance to enhance in every week. D. Kemparaju, Vice-Chancellor, Bengaluru North University, mentioned they recorded 18% attendance.

Fear of contracting COVID-19 was not the one purpose that stored folks away. Students and lecturers additionally attributed the low attendance to the dearth of ample transport obtainable, significantly in rural areas. Many college students mentioned that they had been unable to go to a testing centre, whereas others didn’t wish to get examined for COVID-19. In some cases, college students mentioned that their mother and father didn’t give their consent.

At engineering schools

The turnout at engineering schools was additionally poor. At UVCE, not one of the college students reported to class. Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) VC Karisiddappa mentioned that whereas 65% college students had consented to attend classes, solely 20-35% turned up. Evening schools, too, noticed low pupil energy. At the Sheshadripuram Evening College, solely 16 out of 200 final-year college students attended. “Despite conducting virtual meetings, parents did not want to send their children to college as they depend on public transport,” mentioned N.S. Satish, principal.

M. Manjunath, president, Karnataka Government College Teachers’ Associatio,n mentioned that classes had been held just for ultimate 12 months college students. “A majority of the universities reported low attendance. Only round 10-20% of scholars opted to attend these classes.