Kolkata: Professors fret over syllabus as students bunk online classes

KOLKATA: An apparent lack of motivation and lockdown fatigue might be keeping college-goers from logging into online classes every day, leaving professors and principals worried over finishing syllabuses before first-semester examinations in March.
On-campus classes have been suspended for almost a year now because of the pandemic, though a few universities and colleges have decided to reopen their labs for practical classes.

But ever since the institutes have reopened after the winter break, attendance has started dropping. “I usually attend lectures but, on some days, I don’t feel motivated enough to wake up early and log in. Sometimes, the professors are inaudible and at times, they fail to notice if anyone has a query,” said a first-semester student at Syamaprasad College.
An official at a central Kolkata college conceded not all professors were tech-savvy enough to solve glitches immediately and holding the attention of a big classroom through online platform and that could be a challenge.
To bring students back to classes, colleges have been resorting to several steps, like calling up students and posting the procedure to join online classes on their websites. “We are posting the WhatsApp link on the website so that students don’t face any difficulty. Our teachers are trying to get in touch with students skipping multiple classes,” said Subhasis Dutta, principal, Maulana Azad College. At Umesh Chandra College, the average attendance has been 60%. “Our teachers are working hard to finish the syllabus before the exams but some students are not attending classes, which is a matter of worry,” said principal Mohammad Tofazzal Haque.
Asok Mukhopadhyay of Seth Anandaram Jaipuria College has requested teachers to take regular attendance and counsel students who are skipping lectures. At Basanti Devi College, however, the attendance problem is with the general course only. “The attendance in the Honours section is good,” said Indrila Guha, principal.
College students require at least 75% attendance to be allowed to sit for their semester-end exams. But institutes can’t implement the rule for the pandemic. “There are many students who are trying their best to attend classes despite poor internet connection or other problems. If they fail to fulfil the criteria, we will not be insensitive to their problems,” said Tapan Kumar Poddar, principal at Vivekananda College and president of the Calcutta University chapter of All Bengal Principals’ Council.