IIT Kharagpur has given second-year students the option to come to the campus from end-December to attend online classes from WiFi-enabled hostels in the even semester, which starts in January.
The institute, which said in November that it “does not have the infrastructure to run hybrid classes”, is now working on a plan to hold some classes in the hybrid mode, where some students will attend lectures in-person and others will have the sessions live-streamed to them, said an IIT official.
The institute has so far called a section of final-year and third-year BTech students to the campus because connectivity woes at home were preventing them from attending online placement and internship interviews.
Since all the students have not come and some second-year students may not come because of the pandemic, the institute is planning to introduce the hybrid mode so that those at home do not miss out on lectures.
The dean of students’ affairs, Dhrubajyoti Sen, said that from end-December, second-year students could come to campus provided they were fully vaccinated against Covid.
An official of the institute said that even as classes would continue on digital platforms, they were planning to hold some classes in the hybrid mode and were developing facilities for that.
“A meeting of the special senate in November had resolved that IIT Kharagpur did not have the infrastructure to run hybrid classes, but now we have planned to start some classes in hybrid mode. If it is successful, we will scale it up,” he said.
An IIT professor said that since some students were present on the campus, they had planned to start the hybrid facilities in 12 to 14 classes.
“A feel of classroom teaching increases the urge to attend classes for those not present on the campus,” he said.
An IIT official, however, said logistics continued to pose challenges. Arranging technical support for live streaming many classes at a time is a challenge, he said.
Registrar Tamal Nath said: “We are exploring the possibility of holding some of the classes in the hybrid mode.”
