Humble Request to the Authorities for reopening our institute (IIIT-A). Atleast by the end of September.

 

Table of Contents:-

1)Pain and Mental Trauma Suffered by us

2)Losses faced by us in Career due to ineffective online education

3) Data that clearly depicts that most students are vaccinated, so it is extremely safe for our college to reopen

4) List of other institutes similar to our institute that have already opened up or are planning to open up by September.

5) What we feel about our institute and what all we are ready to do to ensure safety after entering campus.

6) Atleast students must be given an opportunity to chose

7)What would happen to us if Institute is not opened now.

 

 

1) It has been an year and eight months since almost the entire world was affected by SARS-CoV-2 and it hasn't been easy for any of us(harder for some than most).

But apart from all the lives lost, some of the greatest damages have been to the education system worldwide. The losses that youth will incur from not being in educational institutes may never be recouped. From learning loss, mental distress, exposure to violence and abuse, to reduced development of social skills, the consequences for us students will be felt in our academic achievement and societal engagement as well as physical and mental health. The most affected are often those of us, in low-resource settings who do not have easy access to remote learning tools and find it hard to manage college studies.

 

 

2) We, the students of the esteemed IIITA have especially faced a lot of issues during these trying times, some of them being: 

*Ineffectiveness of Online Classes: We intend to clarify it prior to everything else, we do not question the competence of our respected faculty members. But, we must bring to your attention the fact that many professors (and Teaching Assistants) haven’t been able to adapt themselves to Online Teaching methods to an appropriate extent. This has reduced our effective interaction time to a fraction of what is intended. We are learning a lot less than what we could in an Offline scenario.

*Absence of Peer growth pools: We can’t deny the fact that prestigious institutes like ours offer a lot more than premier quality in education, they offer to their students an exposure to fellow curious and skilled minds. The assortment of students in our classes create a Growth-Inducing environment for us. Interacting with people who are equally competent as us, if not more, ignites in us an inspiration to keep growing.

*Lack of access to college infrastructure like labs to learn even the basics of engineering especially in subjects related to EC engineering.

*Network issues, which not only add frustration for us the students but often cause missing out on key tops which have to be painstakingly done later.

*Extreme mental stress, which has led many of our fellow students into depression.

 

 

 

3) We recently conducted a survey among our first year students regarding vaccinations and parental consent for joining college and here are the results:

Approximately 95% of the respondents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, with almost 41% being completely vaccinated and almost 80% of those with one jab stating that they’ll be fully vaccinated by September end.

And when asked how many would have parental consent to join college by September end, 84.5% answered yes, with 9.4% still not having decided and only 6% having been denied the permission.

This clearly shows that most of the students(by an overwhelming majority) are(or will be) vaccinated and even have parental consent to join college.

And now that we’re vaccinated, and there really being no end to the pandemic in sight, this is a risk that we, the students(and even our parents) are willing to take for the sake of our futures.

 

 

4) Many other reputed institutes have already started calling their students to hostels and others have already laid down plans to open their institutes in a “phase-wise” manner and continue classes in a hybrid fashion.

*Like some particular cases where IITD has called some students back to their hostels, and BITS Goa has also laid out a plan to bring back their students. And especially considering the drastic decline of cases in UP and the herd immunity in students(due to vaccines), it is very much possible and even “safe” for us to finally return with the right precautionary measures. And even if a small outbreak does occur, it can be stopped right in its tracks because most of the students are vaccinated against the disease.

 

 

5)Sir we are also ready to restrict access to the world outside college so as to prevent any outbreaks and are more than ready to make any sacrifices to make this successful if we get the opportunity.

*We are all ready to strictly follow all guidelines of social distancing

We ensure the usage complete of masks and sanitizer.

We are also ready to individually take full responsibility of ourselves in taking all precautions.

 

The reputation of our college, one of the greatest educational institutes of the nation, is built on the sheer excellence of the students and alumni it has produced, and keeping us at our homes is greatly hindering our social and academic progress, which will affect us gravely the longer we stay away from college.

 

6) We believe that atleast those students who are willing to return while following all the protocols and guidelines must be given the opportunity. If a student is still unwilling they may get the opportunity to study Online as it is in other colleges like BITS.

But, those students who are really keen and even vaccinated must not be prevented is what we believe.

 

 

7)We have already faced damages because the institute hasn't opened for 1.5 years and these damages are permanent, they cannot be recovered. Currently, it is now or never. There is clearly no firm reason to prevent the opening of our institute as of August 2021, as all over the country people are vaccinated and Covid-19 situation has almost stabilised. It is now or never as the situation ain't getting any better and this is the best time/ opportunity, that other colleges have foreseen to reopen.

 

This petition has been drafted with great grief and a lot of stress. Hence we would strongly urge you to initiate the process of opening our college so that we’re able to outvie the rest and make our esteemed college proud.