Bengaluru Colleges have already started classes under the National Education Policy (NEP) curriculum from October 12, but a day later, teachers said they are confused and not prepared for implementation of the policy.This new curveball has been thrown at them after more than a year of not meeting their students for face to face classes. Even the syllabus has arrived just a day before the classes reopened, making this transition to offline classes all the more difficult this year.
Lecturers from autonomous and affiliated colleges under Bengaluru City University expressed worry that students would be guinea pigs this year, with no crystal plan on implementation.For instance, lecturers like Sudha, the Principal of Vijaya College, Jayanagar, just learnt on October 12 that Mathematics would be incorporated into Physics in the coming days. Lecturers are worried as they have been told that this is the first step (of the many more) towards implementation of NEP — because classes have already started and teachers should have been thoroughly trained and oriented.
One of the participants of the five workshops held to explain the NEP from Bengaluru City University rued that these forums did not allay any confusions that the teachers had, and only the essence of NEP was iterated. "There are a number of on ground issues, and we are supposed to answer our students, but we have no answers," said the lecturers.
Prof Laxman from Vivekananda Degree College sought clarity on if the rule of 15 students minimum registering for a subject for it to be taught was applicable to 'open electives'. To which T D Kemparaju, former vice-chancellor of Bengaluru North University (BNU) responded that rounds of talks are on about finalising the minimum number of students needed to run the course.
Open electives is a tricky domain, lecturers agreed -- as one will not know the demand for a certain course till the students makes it clear in the preceding semester -- gauging the workload for a subject is going to be difficult, they added.
