At least 20 of IIM Calcutta’s final-year MBA (two-year course) students have requested the institute to allow them to return to the campus and use its Net facility to attend disruption-free online classes, an official said.
The requests started pouring in after the institute allowed 62 executive MBA (one-year course) students to return to the campus and use the Net facility to attend online classes without any disruption, the official said.
Of the 62, six reached the campus on Sunday.
The MBA programme office is in touch with parents of the 20 final-year students to decide how and when they might be allowed on the campus. The two-year MBA course has 462 students.
“Initially, one or two students had requested. Since the announcement regarding the MBA executive students, the number of requests from final-year MBA students has gone up,” the official said. “The number is likely to go up further.”
Hunar Gandhi, IIM-C student council president, had earlier written to director Anju Seth asking if it would be possible to allow some students who may have Net connectivity problems or other difficulties at home to return to the campus and use the institute infrastructure to attend online classes. In the same letter he had said students were apprehensive about the quality of learning in online classes.
The MBA students had attended classes on the campus in the first year. The second-year classes have been online so far because of the pandemic.
At least 61 of the institute’s 82 teachers had on Saturday written to its board of governors that the digital infrastructure on the campus was in “poor shape”. The executive MBA students will face Net connectivity problems, they said. “We are, therefore, not sure if this decision to bring them to the campus will improve the quality of online education.”
The Telegraph could not get in touch with director Seth for her version on the matter.
The institute will take the call on allowing the 20 final-year students depending on the success of the plan involving the 62 executive MBA students.
