The university, however, plans to follow a cautious path and await the guidelines of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA).
Members of the All India Students Union are on a 48-hour hunger strike to demand the reopening of the campus for students. Delhi University Students’ Union president Akshit Dahiya said laboratory classes for final year students resumed last month but attendance is still low.
“Online classes do not serve the same purposes as offline teaching. Most of the students studying in the university are from outside Delhi, and they feel that it is not possible to come just for lab work. We have written several memorandums to Vice on this issue. -The Chancellor and the demand for the reopening of the campus will also hold a dharna on Thursday.
Manish Kansal, professor of physics at Hindu College, also said that many students who are based out of Delhi do not think it is viable for them to come back to the city just to attend laboratory classes.
Delhi University Teachers’ Association treasurer Abha Dev Habib said that unless the university allows offline exams, students will not think of returning to the campus.
“Even in the case of schools, exams were first conducted offline and then physical classes started. Students have got used to unproven exams (open book exams conducted due to the pandemic) and back till the tests go offline. The number of students coming to the labs is really less.”
Rajesh Jha, a former member of the Executive Council, said that the reopening of the university should be discussed in statutory bodies like AC and the Election Commission so that necessary safeguards and interests of the students can be taken care of.
“Online classes during the Covid crisis exposed its serious limitations, and have reduced the quality of pedagogy required for higher education,” he said.
However, Registrar Vikas Gupta said that the campus will be reopened only when DDMA allows 100 per cent seating.
He said that most of the students are from outside Delhi and it will be difficult for the teachers to decide who to call with 50 per cent seating cap.
On the plan to reopen the university for students, DU VC Yogesh Singh had earlier said, “We will open the campus but gradually. , we will open. A university also doesn’t seem like a university without students, but we want to move forward slowly.”
.