St Xavier’s College plans to adopt shift system to manage space constraints on campus

Due to the heritage status of Xavier’s structure, significant architectural changes to create more space and classrooms are not possible

Mumbai: In order to manage space constraints on campus and reduce long waiting periods for students between lectures, the St Xavier’s College in Fort is planning to adopt a shift system from the academic year 2025-26. With increased combination subjects due to National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and limited classrooms, the college struggles to accommodate students during lectures one after the other.

Mumbai, India - January 14, 2016 : St. Xavier's College in Mumbai, India, on Thursday. (Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)

“The combination subjects have stretched the timetable, causing students to wait long periods between lectures. We are actively working to reduce the number of combination subjects and have decided to remove those with fewer than ten students starting this year,” said Rajendra Shinde, the principal.

Due to the heritage status of Xavier’s structure, significant architectural changes to create more space and classrooms are not possible. Therefore, the college plans to implement a shift system to make full use of its facilities and campus.

“We have established a faculty committee that will visit various institutions operating in shifts this coming year. They will study the patterns in these institutions, and we may implement the system from the next academic year,” Shinde added. “The campus is usually empty after 4 pm, so this idea could work well.”

Currently, the college utilises St Xavier’s School, located nearby, to conduct lectures for certain courses such as the Bachelor of Accounting and Finance (BAF) and MSc (Big Data Analytics). Some junior college batches, including arts classes for 11th and 12th grades, are also held at the school. Additionally, the PG Geology department has been relocated there.

In future, the college also plans to introduce various courses with specialisations. Shinde further added, “With the NEP we can run as many courses as courses with our expertise. To do utilisation of the current infrastructure we are planning to go in shifts. But the major challenge is the mindsets of the students as well as the teachers. We are currently working on it.”