40% of NIT Durgapur students not willing to return to campus

Of the total 2,263 students, 41.5 per cent who responded to the survey conducted by the institute stated their reluctance about returning to the campus due to the pandemic. 

As per a report published in The Telegraph, in the survey, the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Durgapur authorities had asked the students if they wanted to return to the campus for offline classes. Of the total 2,263 students, 41.5 per cent who responded to the survey stated their reluctance about returning to the campus. 

The institute has started the process of collating the survey data to decide whether they have to conduct hybrid classes in case some students want to stay at home, said an official. The institute simultaneously carried out a survey about the vaccination status of students to consider a phased return to campus. 

“It has emerged in the survey that a section of the students don’t want to come,” said NIT Durgapur director Anupam Basu. An official of the institute said they did not want students to explain their disinterest about returning to the campus but the fear of Covid was one of the reasons. 

Dean of student affairs Rajat Mahapatra said of the 2,263 students, undergraduate and postgraduate students put together, 1,325 (58.5%) were willing to come back. “938 (41.5 per cent) are not willing to come back, 968 (42.7 per cent) have received one vaccine dose and 1,143 (50.51 per cent) are fully vaccinated. Based on this, we have to strategise the resumption of academic activities,” he said. 

An NIT official said if a section of students do not want to come after the institute resumes in-person classes following permission from the Union Education Ministry, then they have to exercise options like hybrid classes so those at home are not deprived. 

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