‘No practicals, hands-on experience in tech subjects a big concern’

The pandemic has shifted the education landscape from classrooms to online teaching-learning at home. Yet, there are some gaps that cannot be filled without active teaching and practical work, especially in the technical courses. Dr Harminder Singh Bains, Director of Panjab University Swami Sarvanand Giri Regional Centre (PUSSGRC), Hoshiarpur, in an interview with Sanjiv Kumar Bakshi, said the main concern was to fill those cracks. The establishment is offering four engineering courses, MCA, PGDCA and two law courses with an approved strength of 1,650 students. Excerpts:

How’s the teaching of different classes going on?

Panjab University SSG Regional Centre (PUSSGRC), Hoshiarpur, is a multi-faculty off-campus establishment of Panjab University (PU), Chandigarh, running programmes in law, engineering and computer applications. All academic activities are as per PU’s norms. Due to pandemic, previous semester’s leftover syllabus was covered online. As per the orders of university’s dean, all classes have been scheduled online from September 1 onwards. Presently, teachers are engaging students through online mode to clear their doubts of leftover topics from previous semester in order to facilitate the understanding of the subjects of current semester.

In case classes commence in September, it is sure to gobble up time for the semester ending in December. What’s your word on it?

Revised academic calendar is being issued by the office of dean of university and instructions will be available soon. I would also like to mention that all Saturdays are working days since the start of semester.

Are there any changes in courses or the curriculum in sight to cope with the present situation?

The course curriculum is decided by the Board of Studies (BoS) of university where teachers of regional centre are also members. As of now, the focus is more on online courses.

Can you expound on the arrangements for online classes? How is the faculty trained and updated for teaching?

All the faculty members are taking online classes and have been given choices in teaching from home, department or campus. We have enough resources and staff to cater to the infrastructural needs of faculty. Not only the faculty but students also have access to different e-learning platforms — students also have online access to the central library at PU, Chandigarh. In addition to this, faculty and laboratory technicians have been asked to prepare e-contents to be delivered to students. The process for procuring e-books for all has also started. Since the lockdown, a number of webinars have been conducted by all departments and were attended both by teachers and students.

How the PUSSGRC plans to conduct final year exams and declaration of results?

It will be as per the notifications released by Panjab University, Chandigarh.

What’s the status on placements for this year?

PUSSGRC has a very good placement record. Our placement officer has an industrial experience of more than 20 years. In view of pandemic, placements will either be conducted online or as instructed by the company. In fact, some of the companies have already started getting students registered. The focus is also on training students to be entrepreneurs. We are planning to establish a satellite incubation centre for which modalities are being worked out.

Share your plans for the academic session 2020-21.

It will depend upon the situation. Presently, students will be taught online. Apart from this, two online international conferences, workshops and faculty development programmes are next in the line. As far as co-curricular and extracurricular activities of this session are concerned, situation shall rule its stars.

Your biggest concern once the classroom teaching restarts?

The conduct of practicals, especially in technical courses, is essential because unless and until a student has hands-on experience on equipment or a machine, he/she is sure to face problems later in life. Some of the topics, especially basic concepts, need a lot of discussion. My first and foremost priority would be to fill all the leftover academic gaps. Organising co-curricular and extra-curricular activities for their holistic growth — dearly missed amid the pandemic — will see increased focus.