Gurugram: Higher education dept to initiate academic guidance visits in colleges

Gurugram:

The state higher education department has proposed that colleges may allow students to visit their premises in a staggered manner to seek guidance from teachers.

In a communication sent to the principals of all colleges on Tuesday, the department shared a tentative protocol with colleges for conducting these sessions and sought feedback on it by Friday.

According to the tentative protocol, students from different courses have been allotted different days of the week for the guidance sessions. Students will be permitted to visit their college twice a week for a duration of three hours in a particular day, says the tentative schedule shared by the department.

Hemant Verma, deputy director (coordination), higher education department, has told principals that universities and colleges could prepare their own timetable, taking a cue from the proposed timetable.

Verma said online classes will continue to take place along with these interactive in-person sessions. Colleges have been asked to share suggestions and preparedness of the institutions to implement these classes by Friday so that trial runs can begin from Saturday.

Pooja Khullar, principal of the Dronacharya Government College, said that the college had received directions regarding the initiation of classes and would convene a meeting with faculty members before sending its response to the department.

“We need to discuss various aspects with teachers before we can prepare a schedule and inform students. Since some students are already appearing for offline exams, they might want to visit the college for these guidance sessions as well. Students who don’t have access to smartphones or those who need assistance or guidance can use these sessions to get their doubts cleared,” said Khullar. ‘

She said the college had already put in place sanitisation measures prior to conducting term-end exams and necessary measures would be taken once the trial classes start.

Srishti Yadav, a second-year BSc student of Government Girls College in Sector 14, who is set to enter the third year, said students came to know about plans to conduct guidance classes twice a week. Yadav said she would prefer to visit colleges since online classes had not been taking place regularly.

“If we look at the increasing Covid cases in the city, the situation doesn’t look good. However, I’d still prefer to go for physical visits since online classes are not very effective in terms of the delivery of lessons. If colleges allow us to visit for even two days in a week, we will be able to clarify our doubts and understand concepts that we struggle to comprehend via remote lessons,” Yadav said.

From Monday, government schools across the city have already started allowing students studying in classes 9 to 12 to visit for voluntary academic guidance sessions.