IIM Calcutta will hold online classes both for the incoming and the second-year batch of the two-year MBA programme from early August, an official said.

The institute will take steps to assist students facing Internet issues in numerous ways so that they can attend the classes.
Classes for the second-year and the incoming batch will start on August 3 and August 10, respectively.

An official said various models have been worked out to help students cope with the connectivity issues.

These include providing recordings of a missed class, opportunity to interact with the instructors after the class and additional tutorials, he said.

Peeyush Mehta, of the operations management group of the Joka business school, said there would be an average of four to five hours of total “live classroom” each day.

“The institute will also assist students facing Internet issues in various ways,” said Mehta.

An official said that during the 10-day online orientation for the incoming batch, which started on Thursday, the issue of the connectivity might be taken up threadbare and solutions worked out accordingly.

Of the 462 students in the second year of the two-year MBA course, as many as 47 students have informed the institute they could not attend online classes because of poor Internet connectivity at home.

The institute is identifying the service providers in the areas the students come from and sharing details of the students with them to tide over the connectivity issues.

“If required, that model could be applied for the incoming batch,” said a teacher.

At one point, the institute had plans to bring back students facing connectivity issues to the Joka campus, but gave up the plan because of the travel restrictions put in place to tackle Covid-19.

Under normal circumstances, second year classes start in the first week of June. The classes of the new batch would start a week after.

Because of the pandemic, the present second-year batch, which was part of a residential programme, will be joining an online programme.

The incoming batch has 480 students. They will be distributed across six sections with a class strength of 80 each to make the learning experience better, said Mehta.

An official said considering the safety of the candidates, the staff and the faculty member, all admission interviews were conducted online.

More than 35 per cent of the incoming students are females. In terms of academic diversity, this year close to 20 per cent of the incoming students are from non-engineering backgrounds.

Institute director Anju Seth said in an emailed statement: “Overcoming the challenges posed by the pandemic, we have put a plan in place to ensure an excellent learning experience through online onboarding and instruction for the incoming batch.…As IIMC reopens in online mode, several steps have been taken to both sustain our academic rigour and preserve the unique teaching and learning experience on a digital platform.”