College students miss out on classes due to delayed Covid test reports

Prolonged delays in Covid-19 test reports badly hit student attendance on the third day of the reopening of colleges across the city. Most undergraduate and postgraduate colleges witnessed poor attendance on Thursday, too.

Students pleading with the authorities to let them in saying they are awaiting results was a common sight outside many colleges. A student at a college in Jayanagar rued that they had not received any update from the BBMP on Covid test results even five days after having given the swab samples.

Another student, from a college on Hesaraghatta Road, said she gave the swab sample at a BBMP fever clinic which doesn’t give the report unless the result is positive. “There won’t be any report if I test negative, which is what the college authorities want. I haven’t even received an SMS. What is stopping the BBMP from issuing a negative report?”

Many students tried in vain to get the test results from the BBMP helpline, which had no idea about the swab samples collected from them, according to a student from Rajajinagar.

Prof K R Venugopal, Vice-Chancellor, Bangalore University, said student attendance on Thursday was lower than Wednesday. Out of 1,434 students enrolled for final-year postgraduate courses at BU, only 128 turned up on Thursday, as against 138 on Wednesday. Further, only 40 of the 50 postgraduate departments on the BU’s Jnanabharathi campus reported attendance, he added.

Out of more than 300 colleges affiliated to the BU, only 57 colleges, or about 15%, reported student attendance, said an official in the university. The overall student attendance was less than 10%, the official added.

Not a single student or staff member turned at the 103-old University of Visvesvaraya College of Engineering a day after two people tested positive, according to the official.