Karachi University Academic Council Announces Online Classes

The academic council meeting of Karachi University approved a proposal to initiate online classes for students as recommended by the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

The Karachi University (KU) administration held an online meeting of its academic council on Friday chaired by Vice-Chancellor Dr. Khalid Mahmood Iraqi extensively discussed the future line of action of the university in accordance with the recommendations of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan.

According to a press release issued by KU, 86 members of the KU academic council unanimously agreed that online classes must be started and that initially, Karachi university would facilitate three to five teachers from each faculty as master trainers.

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The online classes/submission of assignments of various courses as per the approved course outline would be continued till July 15.

Furthermore,  the online classes may also include the alternative to laboratory-related and practical sessions.

According to the notification, the teachers required to conduct online classes from home, in case of any difficulty, would be allowed to use their offices, classrooms or meeting rooms of their respective faculties.

To streamline the exercise each department would be required to constitute a departmental evaluation/student assessment committee by July 15, it further added.

The Academic Council also permits that University could conduct classes for the students who were unable to attend the online classes on Saturdays and Sundays from July 16, 2020, to August 13, 2020.

The first-semester examination would be held from September 14 to 30, 2020  while the second semester could be arranged from October 01 to December 31, 2020.

Teaching for the second semester would be conducted from September 15 to December 13.

According to a news source, a number of senior KU teachers, also members of the academic council, had opposed the online meeting of the council, describing it as a violation of the University Act which, they said, had no provision for an online meeting of the statutory body.

A number of KU teachers have alleged that the vice-chancellor had held the online meeting ‘in haste’ on the directives of the HEC and questioned the minutes of meetings held by different boards of faculties on the proposal of online classes.

“Unless we study minutes of various boards of faculties, what will we approve in the controversial online meeting of the academic council?