West Bengal: SFI has requested the State government to re-open the colleges and resume the classes

Highlights:

The Students Federation of India has requested the West Bengal state government to start the in-person classes for colleges and universities soon. It has argued that the students are being deprived of campus facilities.

Mumbai: SFI (The Students Federation of India) has requested the West Bengal state government to start the classes for the colleges and universities by following the protocols given by the Health Ministry. As per the sources, Srihon Bhattacharya, the SFI state unit general secretary has said that the students are unable to avail the campus facilities including the library and laboratory due to the online teaching.

The state government has not taken any significant measures in order to make the educational section functional, according to the students union.

Pratik Ur Rahman, SFI state unit President, said that due to not resuming the academic activities on institutions campuses, the students and researchers are deprived of using the university facilities. Also, he said that the students had faced problems in appearing for the exams and the in-person classes must resume soon.

Partha Chatterjee, West Bengal Education Minister, recently said that due to the pandemic situation in the state there is no immediate plan to reopen the educational institutes and resume in-person classes.

In September 2020, the central government had instructed the state government to reopen the schools and colleges in the respective states after keeping in view the COVID-19 pandemic situation. It has also asked the state governments to follow the guidelines issued by the Health Ministry strictly before re-opening the schools, colleges and higher educational institutions.

Though about 17 states have re-opened the schools, the West Bengal state government is yet to decide the re-opening date for the students. The cases of COVID-19 are increasing day by day which needs to be considered before taking any such decision.

Neha Jain

Neha Jain is a teacher and a content writer with a good understanding of Education sector in India.