As many as 182 teachers of Jadavpur University have taken financial help from the institute to buy hardware and peripherals as teaching aid during the Covid pandemic.
Each teacher has been given Rs 50,000 as interest-free salary advance.
A teacher said the need to procure hardware like desktops and laptops, and peripherals such as routers and scanners is on the rise as online classes and examinations will continue for quite some time.
According to him, even if the campus reopens after the Puja in November, chances are that only final-year students will be called for in-person classes.
A notice issued on July 30 said the university considered the proposal to provide support towards teaching aid, “especially in the pandemic area where online teaching is compulsory”.
“This month we have sanctioned the advance to the teachers. The advance will be recovered in 20 monthly installments (Rs 2,500 each) from the salary from October 2021 to May 2023,” said JU finance officer Gour Krishna Pattanayak.
A JU official said the teachers wanted the university to buy the hardware and peripherals, which would be returned once the need for conducting classes and exams over online platforms was over.
A notice signed by Pattanayak says: “Considering present financial position the university is not in a position for providing such support...”.
The university’s teachers’ association in a letter to vice-chancellor Suranjan Das on September 14 said: “Campus may be opened in the first phase only for the final-year students after the Puja, if the Covid situation does not deteriorate further…. It should not open for all the students at the same time.”
Parthapratim Roy, the general secretary of the teachers’ association, said: “First and second-year students will have to keep attending classes over digital platforms till the time the university feels it safe to recall all of them to the campus.
The teaching aid will facilitate in carrying out online classes till then.”