Are college campuses safe for students to return?

Are college campuses safe for students to return?

While only a few government non-medical colleges still house Covid patients, most of them are on standby and have not been handed over.

Published: 02nd December 2020 04:32 AM 

Covid care centre at a college being cleaned ahead of college reopening, in Chennai on Tuesday | R Satish babu

By Sushmitha Ramakrishnan

Express News Service

CHENNAI: As colleges brace for return of final-year students on December 7, educational institutions that were converted into Covid-19 isolation centres are struggling to make their campuses clean and safe.

Representatives of several colleges said efforts should be taken to quickly disinfect, clean and handover the institutions to the respective managements. With barely a week left for the reopening, it is learnt that Chennai alone has over 50 colleges which are yet to be handed over to the managements. 

Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Monday announced reopening of medical colleges and resumption of physical classes for final-year undergraduate students of arts and science, engineering, agriculture, fisheries and veterinary programmes from December 7. The government has also announced that courses will be conducted in-person for research students and final-year postgraduate students from Wednesday.

While only a few government non-medical colleges still house Covid patients, most of them are on standby and have not been handed over. Even among those colleges which were handed over, classes are far from ready for students. “We have not had any incoming patients for a few weeks now. We have asked Chennai Corporation to hand over the college after cleaning, and they said they will do it on Tuesday,” said a spokesperson of an arts and science college in Velachery.

Even as the Anna University campus has been handed over, the premises were still being cleaned on Monday when Express visited. A senior official from the university said the campus will be restored to its normal conditions before students are brought in. Meanwhile, the Corporation officials said that only the KP Park Covid-19 care centre has patients. “We have not been admitting any new patients into educational institutions for the last few weeks,” an official said.

Many colleges had handed over their hostel rooms to government. “We handed over hostels and no cleaning has been carried yet. Most students are scared to come back,” said principal of a government arts and science college in Thiruvarur. KM Karthik, the founder of All India Private Colleges Employees Union, said that while reopening colleges for final-year students is a welcome move, it would be risky to reopen colleges for other students immediately.

“Handling a fourth of the college strength while maintaining social distancing will be possible, especially in hostels. Government should wait for a few weeks to see the result of reopening before taking any further decision,” he said.

(Inputs from Omjasvin MD)