SFI urges West Bengal govt to resume classes in colleges, universities

The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) has urged the West Bengal government to initiate steps to resume classes in colleges and universities in strict adherence to COVID-19 protocols.

Students are being deprived of using campus facilities such as library and laboratory in the current academic session as the government has been emphasising on the online teaching, SFI state unit general secretary Srijon Bhattacharya said.

The state government “has not taken any significant measure to make the educational sector functional in a true sense”, the CPI(M) students’ wing leader said.

“Not starting academic activities on institutional campuses is depriving students and researchers of using library, laboratory and other facilities,” SFI state unit President Pratik Ur Rahman said on Thursday.

Apart from these difficulties, many students had faced problems while writing their papers in examinations, they said, adding that “face to face classroom should resume at the earliest”.

West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee had recently said there was no immediate plan to reopen educational institutes due to the COVID-19 pandemic and said online classes would be held as of now.