Authorities of Scottish Church College, situated in north Kolkata, have decided to call undergraduate first-year students of lab-based subjects for attending practical classes on the campus so that they are prepared in case Calcutta University asks the affiliating colleges to hold the end-semester examination in offline mode.
The first-year students will come from December 9, but continue to attend theory classes online.
After the college had resumed in-person classes from mid-November, undergraduate students who are in the third and fifth semesters started coming to the campus.
“There are chances that colleges could be asked to hold the end-semester exams in offline mode. In that case the first-year students of the lab-based subjects will struggle in the practical exams. Therefore we have decided to call them from Thursday,” said Madhumanjari Mandal, the principal of the college.
It has been decided that slots will be created between the practical classes of the third (second-year) and fifth semester (third-year) students for those in the first year.
Since students of mathematics and economics don’t have practical classes in the first semester, so they are not being called.
In the laboratory, maximum 15 students (preferably 10) are allowed at a time, following Covid protocol.
Although autonomous colleges under the ambit of Ramakrishna Mission have decided to hold the end-semester theory and practical examinations on the campus, the colleges that are not autonomous, await instructions from CU over what the mode of the examinations would be.
A college official said that first-year students must have at least the first dose for attending the practical classes.
Those needing accommodation can stay at the hostels, he said.
A teacher of the college said that practical classes must be held for those in the first-year, regardless of what CU decides. “Practical classes cannot be held via online platforms,” he said.
Teacher passes away
Ranesh Chandra Roy Chaudhuri, a retired teacher of Mitra Institution in south Kolkata’s Bhowanipore, passed away on Thursday. He was 87.
Roy Chaudhuri, who received lifetime achievement award for a teacher at The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence 2019, is survived by his wife, also a former teacher at Mitra Institution, and daughter.
Roy Chaudhuri, a Bengali teacher who used to believe that a teacher’s job was not to teach but to help the student to learn, borrowed much of his teaching methodology from Rabindranath Tagore, to whom he was introduced by his father, also a teacher of the same institution.
