IIT Delhi plans to start offline classes from January 2022: Director V Ramgopal Rao

New Delhi: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi aims to fully resume physical classes from January following all COVID-19-related precautions, its director said on Friday. "By November, we will have the first-year students attending in-person classes, and by January 2022, we are expecting to go back to the normal mode of teaching, of course following all the precautions," IIT Delhi Director V Rampgopal Rao said at a press conference.

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Shantanu Roy, Dean Academics, said onboarding of students into hostels will take place in a graded manner to ensure compliance with all safety measures and protocols. "Over a period of time, if things remain well, we expect the DDMA (Delhi Disaster Management Authority) order to offer further relaxations. We will then start moving to actual classrooms. Not all courses will go offline immediately.elective courses Core courses in different disciplines will go offline first and the will be continued online," he said.

Roy said that they were discussing plans of holding offline examinations in the future. However, a cap on 50 per cent occupancy in classrooms will continue at all times. "The modalities of the mapping of classrooms, number of students in a course, and the courses that will be prioritised will be done as per an elaborate plan that we have worked out. However, classes will begin online to begin with," he added.

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