There was a general trend of high attendance being recorded in colleges across Kochi as the classes for final year undergraduate and post-graduate courses resumed here from Monday after an 18-month hiatus due to COVID-19. "Our hostel admissions are still ongoing and that's why the attendance was a bit low today. We expect it to be normalised within the next couple of days. We have limited all other activities due to the situation. Only the necessary teaching sessions were conducted," said G Madhu, a Chemical Engineering professor at CUSAT.
COVID SOPs were followed stringently, "Our class was divided into two divisions to manage all COVID related guidelines. Only students with a negative RT-PCR test result or those who have taken at least their first dose of vaccination were allowed to attend the classes. Except a couple of people, all our batch students attended today. So the attendance was on the high side. I felt that classes can go on for only the final year students as there will be an issue of space if all batches are allowed to attend with social distancing protocol," says Bisna, a final year LLB student at CUSAT.
And as a result, attendance was healthy across the board. "We recorded over 90 per cent attendance for today's class. The students from other countries and a select few who have not taken vaccination were the only ones missing," said Binoy Joseph, Principal of Rajagiri College.
Some also expressed concern over the mode of transportation being a possible source of infection. "No matter how hard we try to maintain the protocol at college, a majority of us are using public transportation where we can evidently see the COVID protocols not being followed accurately. Daily interactions can also make people a little laid back about these rules," expressed Maheswari CS, a final year Communicative English student at Chinmaya College.
