Cautious coaching centres in Kolkata to go for both offline & online classes – Times of India

KOLKATA: After a government notification allowed them to resume classes with 50% capacity from September 1, leading coaching centres in Kolkata are ready to revive physical classes but they are treading with caution. Some are planning a hybrid mode of teaching with both online and offline classes to reduce the risk of Covid transmission.
While schools, colleges and coaching centres have been functioning online, there has been a growing demand for reopening coaching classes for competitive exams so that students aspiring to study engineering and medical can get personal attention and prepare well.

With eight centres across the city, FIITJEE Kolkata is planning to resume classes from September 10. They are planning a hybrid mode and also want to continue online interaction along with offline classes. Head of FIITJEE Kolkata Debdeep Banerjee said, “We are planning a corporate enterprise technology to set up online-offline classes at the same time. It’s an unlimited class room set up as per our choice. We can add unlimited pool of class rooms virtually. When an X number of students are attending physical classes, we can add a Y set of students virtually”.
“Physical classes will be starting with 20 students. We are circulating online forms for students where they can opt for physical classes or online ones. This will take some time so we are planning to start physical classes from September 10,” said Banerjee.
FIITJEE has divided students into three clusters. Phase I is for those aged 18 and above, Phase II for classes XI-XII students and Phase II will be for classes VII-X.
Aakash Institute, a coaching centre for medical entrance test aspirants, is planning to start offline classes from September 8 or 9. Chief coordinator (WB and Patna) of the institute, Bina Agarwal said, “We are distributing Google forms to students so that they can opt for online or offline classes. We have digital boards in our classrooms so we can cater to students simultaneously at physical classrooms and to those attending online from their homes.”
Aakash, however, has already planned a seating arrangement with distance between students. Each classroom has provision for 60 students but only half of that number will be allowed.
Pathfinder is planning to divide each batch into groups ‘A’ and ‘B’, depending on the number of students and its seating capacity.