Regular classes to resume for junior college batches

Over a month after the government approved the resumption of regular classes for final-year students, arts and science colleges are set to receive the students of other batches in a phased manner from Monday.

The Directorate of Collegiate Education has chalked out a schedule to permit first-year and second-year students to attend offline classes in separate batches from February 15 to 27 and from March 1 to 16 respectively. Final-year students will return for yet another round of regular classes from March 17 to 30 before the commencement of their examinations.

Online classes will continue for the remainder of the academic year for batches that did not attend regular classes. Postgraduate classes will continue on a regular basis, considering the relatively fewer number of students in each batch.

The move comes against the backdrop of the review undertaken by the Higher Education Department into the adherence of the COVID-19 protocol in colleges and universities. Director of Collegiate Education V. Vigneshwari pointed out that no COVID-19 clusters had been reported in any higher education institute in the State.

Besides, the precautionary arrangements that were adopted by college managements had been found to be satisfactory.

The official said that colleges had been empowered with deciding on the number of batches that could be accommodated on their campuses at the same time.