The state education department today announced that the college students
in their first year can attend on-campus classroom studies beginning February 8.
Earlier, on January 11, the colleges were re-opened after a gap of more than nine months. As per the Centre’s guidelines of re-opening educational institutions in a staggered manner, the colleges were re-opened only for final year students pursuing undergraduate, postgraduate, M Phil, PhD and other programmes.
The notification issued by the state education department on Thursday said that the standard operating procedures (SOPs) set by the Centre and implemented for final year students will remain in force for first-year students as well.
The government also announced SOPs for the reopening of hostel facilities for college students. Education institutions and schools remained shut for a long time due to Covid-19 induced lockdown.
Colleges have seen attendance of about 25% attendance in the first few days of re-opening and the situation is likely to improve over a period of time with the number of active cases for Covid-19 going down and the launch of Covid-19 vaccination drive recently by the state government.
The online classes will remain on and the government said it was not mandatory for students to attend on-campus classes.
The education department issued a set of guidelines for hostels to begin preparation for re-opening. They include steps like limiting the number of students per room to not more than two students. Various social distancing measures like keeping a distance of one meter from each other, proper sanitization of the rooms, regular washing of hands, avoid gatherings in the hallways or other areas of the hostel, among others, are to be strictly implemented. Guidelines have been announced to keep cleanliness and maintain hygiene levels at hostel messes and also in the toilet and washroom areas. The hostel authorities are to ensure that proper thermal screening facilities, face-masks, and hand-sanitizers are available at the entry and exit points of the student hostels, according to the guidelines.
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