It's been more than a month since physical classes resumed across Karnataka, but colleges are still struggling to frame the timetable with multiple combinations under the National Education Policy (NEP).
Frustrated, heads and faculty of various government and aided colleges in the city highlighted their grievances in the implementation process at a meeting with the Bengaluru City University officials on Tuesday.
Prof Nagendra from a government college in the city pleaded with the BCU officials to help him frame the timetable as it was impossible for him. Several other lecturers facing similar issues applauded. The panelists from the university asked them to individually bring in their grievances and sort it out with some other colleges which had prepared their own timetables.
The task has become uphill with a large number of students entering colleges this year, especially government colleges, as PUC students were all passed this year.
Nagendra said in his college, there were already 550 students, and a large number was allowed to be admitted after the oral approval of the joint director. "And now, as all students get to choose their combinations, and move into different subjects in the discipline, running a permutation and combination of all the combinations chosen has become difficult," he rued.
The lecturers said that to add to this is the fact that yoga, physical wellbeing and digital fluency has been made mandatory and all are practical subjects, except one, which has even a theory element. Now, for institutes with a smaller infrastructure, and yoga needing more space, students have to be split into smaller batches — and with two hours each week for each of these additional subjects, time gets consumed in just those.
"They eat into the other subjects' theory timetable," said Elizabeth Jasmine, principal of the Indian Institute of Psychology and Research. A commerce lecturer told TNIE that she still has no clarity on what is to be taught in the classroom and at present, they are taking up just practical classes. Meanwhile, others, including B S Srikanta, principal of Sindhi College, hoped that the end of the semester was extended beyond the first week of February. Evaluation for new compulsory subjects was not known yet, added a head of an institute.
