DADU: The students and scholars of universities in Sindh have called for starting online classes in a bid to complete their studies in due course of time and get an opportunity to compete in national job market like the students of institutions of Karachi and other parts of Pakistan.

As per orders of government of Sindh, although the higher educational institutions across the province are closed till May 31, the heads of as many as 11 universities in Sindh excluding Karachi couldn’t manage to commence online classes so far in spite of unambiguous directives of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman Dr Tariq Banuri.

At a time when universities in the country and elsewhere in the world are fast shifting to online learning in the wake of lockdowns and other measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, students and scholars of the universities in the interior of Sindh took to social media on Saturday asking the authorities concerned for online classes amid lockdown.

One of the comments which was copied and pasted by a majority of Facebook users read: “Online classes are need of the hour and our universities must have way towards it. Lectures, quizzes, assignments can go effectively due to easily availability of internet. As we are paying heavily for quality education, therefore the concerned universities or HEC ought to come forward to provide us with speedy internet facility free of cost and commence online and virtual classes in order to save time”.

“We are in favour of online education and such classes need to be started,” popped up as one of the top trends in the country on Twitter.

Simultaneously, there were calls for provision of internet packages to students from their respective educational institutions or the HEC.

Some students of different universities in Sindh argued that if online classes were not held, they would lag behind in the job market of the country in competition with students of Karachi’s educational institutions as well as those in some other parts of the country.

Sindh Agriculture University (SAU), Tandojam Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujeebuddin Sehrai has also decided to start offering online teaching to students during the closure.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2020