COVID-19 Crisis: IIT Bombay scraps Classroom Study for 2020, mulls for Online Study only

In a first, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay will not welcome its students to the campus this year. 

Subhashish Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay, in an official release on Wednesday, 24 June 2020 has stated that the institute will only conduct online sessions for upcoming semesters of 2020 to ensure safety and wellbeing of students.

Through this announcement, IIT Bombay ranked 3rd among Top Engineering Colleges by NIRF, also became the first premier institute of India to come up with such a mindful step in the wake of the unruly COVID-19 pandemic. 

He further mentioned through a Facebook post, which reads as “The COVID Pandemic has made us at IIT Bombay rethink the way we impart education to our students. 

To ensure that our students begin the academic year without further delay, we are planning on extensive online classes details of which will be informed to all students in due course of time.”

The 62 years old institute will make history by beginning a new session after IIT Bombay admissions 2020, and no students will be present on the campus. It is believed that other IITs will follow suit in terms of declaring to conduct virtual classes till the year-end.

Earlier, the IIT board of director’s committee discussed conducting 18 months PG courses starting December 2020. 

Mr Chaudhuri further posted, “We do not want a single student to miss out on the learning experience for the lack of money. We have estimated that we need about Rs 5 crores to help those needy students. 

Our alumni have committed a good amount of support, but that is not enough for all these needy students and I solicit through this message your donations, however small it may be.”

To meet the financial constraints of a digital divide and bridge all shortcomings, the director appealed for donations. In the surge for virtual classes, the institute does not want to compromise on students who lack devices to continue with virtual education. 

A larger section of IIT Bombay’s student base belongs to economically deprived classes. The funds to be raised will address the shortcomings of these students by facilitating them with laptops and internet connectivity to support their virtual education. 

In this context, the institute has been sending emails individually to each student enquiring whether they have personal computing devices and internet connectivity. 

Meanwhile, IITs also believe JEE Mains should not be cancelled. Other alternatives may dilute the quality of education provided by these institutes for years by now.