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The Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai has scrapped all face-to-face lectures for the rest of the year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The global health crisis called the coronavirus has taken a toll over all our lives. The pandemic which started in the December of 2019 in a small city in Wuhan has spread all over the world infecting near 10 million people. India is soon going to cross the 5 lakh mark of confirmed coronavirus cases.

Due to the pandemic and the lockdown which started in India on the 24th of March the schools, colleges and universities have been shut down. Examinations had to be canceled and classes went from class rooms to computer systems. This pandemic showed us the new reality of the world. Though classes of schools and colleges are still going online, there is no particular date or there is no announcement of when the schools and colleges will be scheduled to reopen. Though there are some reports which say that they could reopen in the month of October.

Indian Institute of Technology popularly known as IIT in Mumbai becomes the first major university or educational institution in the country to scrap class room classes for the rest of the year. All the classes until the beginning of the next year will be held online.

The Director of the institute, Subhasis Chaudhuri had made an announcement late on Wednesday night that the institute is going to teach the entire next semester through virtual classes. The whole semester is going to be purely in the online mode.  This decision is taken up to ensure the safety of the students as that is of utmost importance. The institute says that they are not going to compromise on the safety of students or their well-being at any cost. He shared this news on a Facebook post late night on Wednesday.

In the institute’s 62 year old history, this is the first time it’s happening that a new academic year is going to tart with no students on the campus. IIT Mumbai has already made this statement and looks like IIT’s in the other states are likely to follow the same steps of online virtual lectures.

The director also mentioned that they are looking for funding for their students to provide them with laptops and other necessary internet data plans for them to have a stress free class. Large amount of students at IIT-Bombay come from economically weak families and the institute is looking for funds to help bridge the digital divide between the students who can attend the classes and the students who cannot. In the post the director described how they don’t want even a single student to miss out on the learning experience just due to monetary issues. The institute says they need an amount of Rs. 5 crore to provide the students with the necessities of virtual classes.

The alumni of the prestigious institute have also committed a good amount of support for the needy students and following that the heads of departments have sent emails to all students enquiring who all do not have access to a personal computer or laptop or even internet connection.

By Deepika Agarwal