DU’s new UG session kicks off today

Amid the pandemic, DU stopped all in-person classes in March last year. While on-campus practical sessions were resumed in February, the sessions were called off in March amid the onset of the fourth Covid-19 wave in Delhi.

Delhi University (DU) will start the academic session for the new batch of undergraduate students on Monday completely online, and ahead of the initiation of classes, most colleges will hold orientation or induction sessions for the new students to acquaint them with their respective institutions and departments.

The university has also issued anti-ragging guidelines and asked colleges to form anti-ragging and disciplinary committees. (HT File Photo)

The university has also issued anti-ragging guidelines and asked colleges to form anti-ragging and disciplinary committees.

According to the anti-ragging guidelines, the heads of institutions need to identify a disciplinary resource person (DRP) in each college, hostel, hall, department and their contact details must be shared with the proctor’s office. The guidelines also suggest sealed complaint boxes be placed in front of the principal’s office where students can register complaints.

Amid the pandemic, DU stopped all in-person classes in March last year. While on-campus practical sessions were resumed in February, the sessions were called off in March amid the onset of the fourth Covid-19 wave in Delhi. In September, the varsity allowed final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students to return to campus for practical and laboratory work, as part of its plan to reopen in a phased manner.

Manoj Sinha, secretary of the DU Principals’ Association and head of Aryabhatta College, said students from different courses will be inducted throughout Monday. Students of four courses each will be inducted every hour starting from 9am. Sinha said that the orientation will see teachers from various departments apprising students about anti-ragging guidelines, add-on courses, and ECA societies among other things.

“Various departments will be holding interaction with students for an hour. All teachers will interact with students and make them aware of the workings of the department through presentations or videos... Teachers will also get a chance to know about students’ hobbies and interests,” said Sinha.

The college also provides laptops to help students who might not have devices for online classes.

Manoj Khanna, principal of Ramjas College, said that incoming students will be able to log in and take part in the orientation through their college dashboards. All departments will be conducting different induction sessions for students depending on the student strength at the college. For courses that have a high student strength, the college has provided zoom links for the online induction whereas courses having a lower strength will be able to hold the orientation through other available mechanisms.

Some colleges are also planning to share recorded videos with students as part of the induction ceremony due to technical challenges. The websites of both Dyal Singh and Dyal Singh (Evening) College remained inaccessible until Sunday, due to which a number of students were seen making enquiries about the orientation session.

Pawan Kumar Sharma, college principal of Dyal Singh (Evening) College, said that the college’s website had not been working for the past three days and the issue was yet to get resolved. “The website is down for the past two-three days. The university has assured me that the website will be fixed soon. We are still waiting for the website to start running but if the issue is not resolved, we will share individual links with students,” said Sharma.