LAHORE: A Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) nine-member committee on Tuesday allowed all public and private universities to initiate online classes, and directed them not to announce summer vacation yet.

This removes the prevailing confusion whether to hold online classes or halt academic activities and announce vacation until May 31. The committee had been established to make a decision on holding of online classes.

Earlier, most of the public sector universities had started online classes to complete their current academic year after closing campuses till April 14. Later, the federal government announced “summer vacation” till May 31.

Some of the universities had stopped online classes after the announcement of the summer vacation, while some continued.

Two days ago, the HED had constituted a committee to formulate policy and oversee the matter related to online classes, teaching methodology and assessments for learning outcome in the province.

Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) Chairman Prof Dr Fazal Ahmed Khalid was appointed the convener, while its members included University of Engineering and Technology Vice Chancellor (VC) Prof Dr Mansoor Sarwar, University of Agriculture Faisalabad VC Prof Dr Muhammad Ashraf, King Edward Medical University VC Prof Dr Khalid Masud Gondal, Lahore University of Management Sciences VC Prof Dr Arshad Ahmad, Punjab University VC Prof Dr Niaz Ahmed Akhtar, University of Education VC Prof Dr Talat Naseer Pasha, Virtual University of Pakistan Rector Dr Naeem Tariq and Kinnaird College for Women Principal Prof Dr Rukhsana David.

The committee and PHEC would work and coordinate with all stakeholders to provide necessary support to the universities for online courses, smart classrooms and IT facilities. The universities would have to start preparing/uploading their lectures/assignments to the learning management system (LMS) for students to access the courses.

On Tuesday, eight members of the committee held a video conference. They concluded policy guidelines for the universities for online education, including initiation of online teaching and learning process, ensuring compliance with minimum requirements and facilities available on campus such as LMS and various software, including Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Class and Hangouts.

The universities should provide training and facilitate faculty members involved in online teaching and also ensure access to the students to engage them in lectures, provision of course material, guidance and counselling sessions, assignments and projects’ supervision.

In case of remote areas and access issues, the students who were unable to attend online sessions should have an opportunity to access course material and join counselling sessions through email/WhatsApp. The university could also decide to give the students a chance to freeze the semester or take make-up classes during summer as soon as normal academic session is resumed.

However, the universities were autonomous and it was their prerogative not to opt for online education. They could revise their academic calendar if required and/or formulate policies to ensure quality, maintenance of minimum requirements for online education and revision of assessment and grading policy for assignments/quizzes, mid-term and final exams.

In case of practicals, lab work and projects, the faculty members were advised to provide online guidance and advice to students so they could complete their practical work and projects upon resumption of the normal academic session.

It was agreed that institutions such as UET Lahore and Virtual University -- that already had a good LMS – could help other institutions. A sub-committee was constituted to work out software and hardware requirements of universities.

Issues of storage capacity, bandwidth and hardware were also discussed to get support from the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB).

The PHEC will work with HEC and HED for updates on policy matters and check with universities to evaluate their needs for IT infrastructure, automation, assessment and LMS to assess financial requirements for inclusion in the next year’s budget.

A public university teacher on condition of anonymity told Dawn that both students and teachers were facing a difficulty in delivering and receiving online lectures. She said a relevant subject teacher was directed to create a WhatsApp group of students and record five-minute audio lectures and forward to the group.

She said the students were also complaining that they did not have internet connections as they belonged to remote areas, and girls were not allowed to use mobile phones there. She further said most of the students did not have any email address to receive syllabus and assignments and did not know how to use MS Office programmes.

A number of students tweeted their reservations over online classes that they did not have gadgets and proper course material and it would be difficult for them to continue the classes like this. They feared that if they did not get conventional education they could end up losing their six-month semester.

However, the PHEC chairman and convener of the committee, Prof Dr Fazal Khalid, told Dawn that all the universities were directed to contact students first and register them for the online classes.

He said they knew about the issues of connectivity because some students belonged to remote areas where they did not have access to internet, and the university would send them education material and lectures through email and provide the same on its website where everyone could access it.

He further said the universities should have to start advance level of education in start-up mode and the government and its IT sector would facilitate them in capacity building. They would provide trainings to teachers and were also fixing the problem of practicals and laboratories for engineering universities.

Dr Khalid said all efforts were being made to complete the current academic year and save six months of the students, and also develop the capacity of universities to cope with an untoward situation.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2020