Chandigarh: Guidelines for reopening colleges to be issued soon

Educational institutes in Chandigarh allowed to reopen from August; those attending physical classes must have taken at least one vaccine dose

Detailed guidelines for reopening of colleges in Chandigarh will be issued this week, a senior official of the education department confirmed on Sunday.

It is likely that students of Chandigarh colleges will be allowed to attend physical classes with consent of their parents and online classes will also be conducted simultaneously. (HT file)

Although classes for the 2021-22 academic session will start for Panjab University’s (PU) affiliated colleges from August 11, including the ones in Chandigarh, modalities are yet to be issued by the UT higher education department.

In July, the Chandigarh administration allowed colleges and universities to reopen from August, with the rider that students, teaching and non-teaching staff who turn up for physical classes must have received at least one vaccine dose.

It is likely that students will be allowed to attend physical classes with the consent of their parents and online classes will be conducted simultaneously. With PU releasing its academic calendar recently, colleges are also waiting for guidelines to be issued.

Since the pandemic outbreak in March last year, city colleges have remained largely shut. Some of them reopened in November, but didn’t evoke much response from students. When the first wave subsided, the administration had decided to reopen all colleges in February this year. However, the second wave started soon after in March, thwarting the plan.

Admission schedule to be announced shortly

The admission schedule for centralised and non-centralised courses in city colleges are likely to be announced this week. The higher education department has made all preliminary preparations for UG and PG admissions and a meeting will be held in coming days to finalise the schedule. An official said it is expected to be released this week.

According to the academic calendar issued by PU, teaching for ongoing batches in affiliated colleges will start from August 11. However, the teaching for first year students of undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) courses will start from September 1 and September 13 respectively.