Polytechnic colleges to start online classes for the first time

The government’s decision to conduct online classes for Polytechnic students came after several requests from parents and managements of the institutions.

The Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE), which monitors all polytechnic colleges in the State, has instructed principals of the institutions to commence virtual mode classes from August. A senior official from DoTE told DT Next on Tuesday that as per Government’s recent order, all educational institutions in Tamil Nadu should remain closed till August 31.

“All the principals, including government and government-aided polytechnic colleges besides self-financing institutions, were asked to make arrangements for online classes following State guidelines, which was issued recently.” Stating that conducting online classes will benefit more than two lakh polytechnic students across the State, the official said that the management should also ensure that students do have access to laptops or desktops besides the availability of internet connections. “In addition to online classes, the institutions were instructed to look wherever possible for existing resources like DoTE e-Lectures, SWAYAM, National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) and other Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) training if found in line with the syllabus may be utilized for this purpose,” he said.

Similarly, a total of 720 video modules, which was recently prepared through the Educational Multimedia Research Centre of Anna University, were uploaded to DoTE site itself, he said. Asserting that the students will not be invited to the institution for online class purposes, the official said that the classes will continue till the re-opening of colleges.

“In addition to the online classes, course material for the new academic year could also be downloaded by the students,” he said, adding that even free textbooks will be available for the students studying in government polytechnic colleges.