BHOPAL: Colleges in Madhya Pradesh opened after a gap of about 17 months on Wednesday with thin attendance. Most of the students who reached the colleges were largely unaware of the Covid protocols. Most of the students reached their colleges without their parents consent letter. Professors and other staff members were cautious enough to stop students at the entrance gate and ask for parent’s consent letter and Covid certificate.
This happened in most of the colleges, including MVM College, MLB College and Nutan College. “Students turned up in very low numbers. Most of them forgot to bring the consent letter of their parents. However, they were given a warning and asked to come with the consent letter the next day but were allowed to enter college,” said Prof. RS Raghuvanshi. Students also forgot to bring their Covid vaccination certificates but nobody was denied entry, he added.
In MLB College and Nutan College, non-academic staff kept vigil on the campus to ensure that students did not gather at one place and violate Covid norms. However, the crowd of students outside colleges threw Covid norms to the winds. Classes were conducted in a manner that online classes also went along.
In some colleges, students of the first year also reached the campus but were returned by the college staff. Classes for first-year undergraduate students will start on October 1. Minister for higher education Mohan Yadav reiterated that online and offline classes would go on simultaneously and the students could even attend the classes from home and there was no compulsion for them to come to college.
