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A meeting between the Vice-Chancellors of state universities and the West Bengal Higher Education Minister, Partha Chatterjee, on Sunday decided to start undergraduate classes in colleges from November 2 after completing the admission procedure in October.
A Vice-Chancellor of a prominent state university, who attended the virtual meeting, told PTI it was also decided to start first year postgraduate classes from December 1 if it was not possible to start classes in November.
Both UG and PG classes will be conducted in the online mode and the respective higher educational institutions will chalk out the modalities, including reaching out class notes and lectures to students not having net connectivity, he said.
“As per the UGC advisory, we have to start UG and PG classes for the 2020-21 academic session without much delay. Hence it was agreed that classes will commence after the admission procedure is completed,” he said.
While admission to the UG level will be over by October 31, the admission procedure at the PG level can only be completed at the end of November and, hence, PG classes can effectively start from December 1, he said.
“We drew the attention of the Education Minister to this factor and the difficulty in starting postgraduate classes by the end of November. It was then decided that first-year PG courses will begin from December 1,” the VC said.
In another important decision, the universities decided to reserve 80 per cent of the total seats under different PG courses for students who had studied UG courses under the college, affiliated to the university, or studied in the UG course at the same university (like Jadavpur University), a higher education department official said.
“This was necessitated by the pandemic situation and curbs on transport, movement of students outside Bengal has been difficult and they might face difficulties in enrolling in higher education institutions located outside the state,” he said.
The minister and the VCs decided not a single student will be left out from the online class module and each university will decide how to make the classes inclusive for students living in urban and rural areas in consultation with the faculty and student representatives, the VC said.
The Education Minister did not take calls after the meeting.
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