DU colleges reopen, students back on campus after two years

New Delhi: Colleges in the city reopened on Thursday after being shut for almost two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with students saying that they are excited to be back on campus. The Vishwavidyalaya Metro Station, near the Delhi University, was jampacked as a large number students made their way to colleges in the north campus.

Gajendra Mohan Thakur, a 26-year-old Campus Law Centre student, said, "I am excited to go back to the campus. The university was shut for around two years. The online mode of study was not efficient enough to substitute the offline mode of education. It is a time to reclaim our lost years."

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Delhi University colleges were closed in March 2020 following the outbreak of the coronavirus infection. There has been drastic changes in lives of students, with particular emphasis on online classes, but now, when lives are coming back on track, "we students are super excited to join offline classes as it provides a whole new bunch of opportunities and exposure to shape our future", Kalyani Harbola, a first-year student, said. "Offline classes also provide a better platform for student-teacher interaction and better learning," Harbola said.

Student bodies held protests earlier this month, demanding the reopening of the campus. The decision to reopen the institutions came after a decline in the number of COVID-19 cases in the national capital. Delhi reported 766 COVID-19 cases along with five fatalities, while the positivity rate declined to 1.37 per cent, according to data shared by the Health Department here on Wednesday.