The chorus for reopening the Delhi University campus has grown louder with several teachers and students demanding resumption of offline teaching as the COVID-19 situation has normalised in the national capital. The university, however, plans to tread a cautious path and is awaiting guidelines from the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA).
Members of the All India Students” Association are on a 48-hour hunger strike to press for their demand of reopening the campus for students.
Akshit Dahiya, president of the Delhi University Students” Union, said laboratory classes resumed for final-year students last month but the attendance is still poor.
Manish Kansal, professor of physics at the Hindu College, too said several students who are from outside Delhi do not feel it is viable for them to return to the city just for attending laboratory classes. Abha Dev Habib, Delhi University Teachers” Association treasurer, said unless the university allows offline exams, students will not think about returning to the campus.
However, Registrar Vikas Gupta said the campus will be reopened only if the DDMA allowed 100 per cent seating capacity. Most of the students are from outside Delhi, and it will be difficult for teachers to decide whom to call with a 50-per cent seating cap, he added.
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On plans to reopen the university for students, DU VC Yogesh Singh had earlier said, “We will open the campus but slowly. We don’t want to open it in a hurry and risk the lives of students. The places that we can open, we will open. The university also doesn’t seem like a university without students, but we want to proceed slowly.”
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