Reopening of colleges gets positive response from students in Karnataka

A staffer checks the temperature of students at Government Arts and Management College in Bengaluru. DH photo/M S Manjunath

The reopening of colleges for all undergraduate, postgraduate, diploma and polytechnic courses in the state received an encouraging response with around 60% second-year and 30% first-year students attending offline classes on Friday.

The college authorities and state-run universities expect to reach 90% attendance of the students for offline classes from Monday.

Vice-Chancellor of Bengaluru North University T D Kemparaju said, “We have collected details from affiliated colleges and everyone said the response from the students is good. As we have opened from Friday, many students, who are out of station, have decided to report from Monday. We are expecting 90% attendance for offline classes from Monday.”

In-Charge Vice-Chancellor of Bengaluru City University N Narasimha Murthy said, “The response for offline classes is very good as we have got around 60% students attendance to offline classes. By next week, this will definitely reach 100%.”

“The students are also bored with online classes and are waiting for colleges to reopen. I was interacting with first year students and they were all happy to be on the campus,” principal of a private engineering college said.

At some colleges, the students from outside Karnataka have communicated that they will join after a week. Following this, some private and Deemed-to-be Universities have decided to reopen after a week.

Speaking to DH, Santosh M S, joint registrar at Jain University, Bengaluru, said, “Around 70% of the students confirmed their presence for offline classes. As we need to make arrangements at hostels also, we have decided to start from January 21 in a staggered manner.”

The students were happy to be back on campus after almost 10 months. “We are all aware of the pandemic and we will follow the guideline issued by the college,” said a Charith B R, a second year engineering student.