FPJ-Ed: University teachers in Maharashtra demand work from home option amid rising COVID-19 cases

FPJ-Ed: University teachers in Maharashtra demand work from home option amid rising COVID-19 cases

Chaitali DharamshiUpdated: Wednesday, January 05, 2022, 07:54 PM IST
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FPJ-Ed: University teachers in Maharashtra demand work from home option amid rising COVID-19 cases | PTI File Photo

Due to an increase in the number of cases in Mumbai, many restrictions have been imposed in the city. The decision to conduct colleges online till February 15 has been announced today by Uday Samant, Higher and Technical Education Minister, Maharashtra. He also added, "Colleges and Universities will be closed till February 15 and exams will be conducted online."

With this decision in mind, teachers from different universities and colleges all over Maharashtra have come together and have demanded to allow university and college teachers to teach from home. Maharashtra's Union of Secular Teachers(MUST) currently constitute 1250 teachers from all over Maharashtra.

A letter regarding the same was written to Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Chancellor; Uday Samant, Pro-Chancellor and Education Minister; Rajesh Tope, Health Minister; Prof Suhas Pednekar, Vice-Chancellor- the University of Mumbai and Ujwala Chakradeo, Vice-Chancellor, SNDT women's university Mumbai by Maharashtra's Union of Secular Teachers(MUST).

The official letter sent to the department reads, "The cases of COVID- 19 are increasing exponentially and students are not fully vaccinated, travelling with public transport can take a heavy toll on students health, hence many students are not attending classes offline."

With a drop in no. of several college students in the classroom, teachers are simultaneously conducting both online and offline classes for students from colleges. Teachers of the association are requesting the University to allow them to work from home only due to the current increased pandemic situation in Mumbai. Dr. Vijay N Pawar, President of the association and Ex-Senate member of MU said, "Earlier when online classes were held online, teachers were used to it. Now after the reopening of colleges, teachers are called to the campus for offline classes. That's not at all a problem, but the attendance of students is less and teachers are called in the campus unnecessarily, just to take online classes."

"There are various concerns, considering the group of first-year, only 20% of the students are completely vaccinated. Of this, only 10% of students are attending offline classes. Students are opting for online lectures more. Teachers are conducting lectures first on the campus and then they go back home and conduct the same lecture again. Even necessities like laptops, wifi connection is not provided to everyone. Teachers are asked to bring their set up every day, and even use their data connection. This is not at all feasible," stated Shantaj Deshbhratar, General Secretary of the Association on behalf of the teachers.

Teachers are also facing problems of infrastructure availability like laptops, wifi facility, separate classrooms/cabins. Dr. Sonakshi Vichare, a Professor from SNDT college of Arts, Science, and Commerce, Churchgate said, "Students are less in number and we teachers are dragged unnecessarily. We are sitting in the college for full time and sometimes even hours are crossed. That's not an issue, but now parents are reluctant to send their children to physically attend classes. Many of them are even working to support their family financially. This makes attendance even less. Online mode is convenient for them. Since the new wave is surging, online lectures are feasible at the time. For the last one and a half years, we managed online teaching from home itself. We have our system at home, traveling with all the necessities this far is not convenient."

On the other hand, Principal's of colleges are waiting for the heads up from the University to allow their teachers to work from home. "We have already switched to a hybrid model of teaching. The decision to allow teachers solely depends on the university. If it takes the decision, we are more than happy to allow them. The safety of students and teachers is of utmost importance. The percentage of students was low, hardly 20 percent of the students attended offline classes. Teachers are taking online as well as offline classes at the same time in our college. We have even provided almost everyone with the laptop facility last year," said Dr. Minu Madlani, Principal of Hinduja College, Mumbai.

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