Students panic as colleges suspend online classes

While the Maharashtra Higher and Technical Education Department and University of Mumbai MU had directed colleges to provide both offline and online modes of education to students from February 1 it has now come to light that many colleges in the state and Mumbai including law colleges have failed to adhere to this norm This has compelled students to write to the studentrsquos union seeking their intervention in the matterldquoWe have received complaints from seven to eight colleges in Mumbai and across Maharashtra and even students at individual capacity have approached the union In Mumbai KC College students had written a lengthy email to our union highlighting their concern about the offline mode getting discontinued from February 8rdquo said Advocate Siddharth Ingle Founder President Maharashtra Students Union MASUldquoThe central government has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that vaccination is completely voluntary and not mandatory This means that Uday Samant the education minister is running the Department of Higher and Technical Education arbitrarily without considering the interests of the students and the students have to bear the loss and consequences If this continues then the students will have no recourse other than protestrdquo he saidHe added soon after receiving the complaint from KC College students he approached principal H Bagla wherein she mentioned that the college was still in the process of making a list of students regarding their vaccination status Shifting responsibilitiesldquoThe statersquos Department of Higher and Technical Education has shifted their responsibility to the university which in turn has put a burden on colleges and the colleges have started their arbitrarinessrdquo said Ingle On January 25 2022 the department through GR had allowed offline mode from February 1 for those who have taken both doses of vaccinationldquoIt is observed that the circular is recommendatory and not mandatory which means that students need to be afforded a choice of attending physically or virtually This is inherent in every citizenrsquos Right to Choice within the ambit of Personal Liberty under Article 21 of the Constitutionrdquo Floyd Gracias Counsel Supreme Court who is also a visiting lecturer in lawOnus on the collegesAmol Deshmukh an official from Higher and Technical Education department said ldquoThe mandate from the department is clear to execute both the mode of teaching offline and online so that the vaccinated and nonvaccinated students could continue with their studies and the onus is on the respective colleges The colleges which are conducting offline courses should ensure that such sessions are recorded and the entire lecture is uploaded on the college portal in recorded form ldquoOther side of the storyDr Hemlata Bagla Principal KC college said ldquoIf the students had any issues they should have brought their concern to the notice of the concerned heads or me as the head of the institution We would have been in a better position to resolve any of their grievances Moreover I have always encouraged an open walkin policy but no student approached usrdquoBut when informed that an email was sent to not only the principal but to the two vice principals by the students highlighting their concerns Bagla admitted to receiving the mail but said ldquoThe email id was created in the name of lsquostudentsofkccollegersquo and we do not know the actual sender We know each studentrsquos issue will be different why collective mail However we had provided an alternate mode of making a complaint but we presume that due to the fear of getting identified no complaint was receivedrdquolsquoMishandling of email IDsrsquoPrincipal Bagla further clarified ldquoAs per the government directives from February 1 we had started the college in both online and offline mode and most of the students who were vaccinated had resumed the college It was observed that during the hybrid sessions as the lecturer would be busy teaching the offline class they would seldom be able to pay attention to four or five students joining online also students would face bandwidth issues or even audio clarity problems hence we decided to stop the online class for the time beingrdquo She added ldquoIf HSCSSC exams are conducted offline why canrsquot the other students prepare to resume offline colleges Students are mishandling the emails provided for internal streamlining of communicationsrdquo