While self-financing engineering colleges have started conducting offline classes, their peers in Anna University’s four departments are attending online classes. This has led to concerns among parents who fear that their wards could be losing out on valuable exposure to campus environment.

Parents say their wards have not been to college for 18 months. They had only been called in batches for practical sessions.

“Schoolchildren are not vaccinated, yet schools have started functioning with full strength. The government has started running trains to full capacity. Even temples have been opened up. Yet, these are young adults over the age of 18. They are vaccinated with both doses. Still they are not permitted to return to normal college routine. The colleges should be bold and start calling back students,” said a parent.

Parents have had informal discussion with the university faculty and were told that the institution was only following the State government’s standard operating procedure as the safety of students was paramount.

Since the university hostel rooms had to accommodate four students per room, the university was hesitant, said a faculty.

A parent said students had been told to attend in person classes for engineering design classes.

University sources said the decision on having the students back on campus should be made by the institution head.

Senior professors, however, said institutions had to take a call on conducting in-person class based on their ability to observe COVID safety protocols.

A lecturer explained, “The university has around 10,000 students. The norms have to be followed. For the first year, physical classes have been advocated after they complete their induction programme. The university has announced that for second year students, the practical exams would be through the regular mode. It is only a matter of time before normalcy returns.”

Classes for some

Vice-Chancellor R. Velraj said from Thursday classes would be conducted for third and fifth semester students. “If hostel facilities were available, we plan to call final year students,” he said and added that the first year students would be called later.

At present, one college hostel at A.C. Tech College campus was being used to accommodate COVID-19 patients by the government.