By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, May 9: Representatives of Public Campus Association said Friday that though public campuses started online classes for their students, many of their students lacked access to such classes.
In an interaction with the representatives of the Public Campus Association (PCA) and Education Journalists’ Network (EJON), chiefs of many public campuses said though majority of the students of the semester system were participating in the online classes, the students of annual system did not have access to them.
Dr. Tara Prasad Upadhyay, chief of Lumbini Bhanijya Campus, Butwal, said majority of the students of the campus are from the remote areas of hilly districts and from lower-middle class families, and after the lockdown they have been to their homes where there is no access to internet.
Upadhyay said about 95 per cent students of semester system and only 25 per cent students of annual system were attending the online classes.
Bhola Ojha, chief of Janamaitri Campus, Kathmandu, said that about 75 per cent students of the semester system and 20 per cent of the annual system in the campus were attending online classes.
Ojha said they could not include all students of annual system in online classes because of their large numbers.
Padam Raj Panta, Information Technology expert of Open University, said that the criteria to operate classes from zoom application were faulty.
Panta further suggested that the government had to develop a mechanism to attend the classes even in offline. The classes could be run even from radio and television in coordination with the local governments, Panta added.
“In some countries, there is a practice of zero data sim which supports to run educational website without any cost. If the government follows the same practice here, it can be a boon for our education system,” Panta said.
Shiva Raj Sanjel, chairman of PCA, said public campuses were facing financial as well as technical problems to run the virtual classes. Therefore, they were seeking support from Tribhuvan University as well as from the government.
According to PCA, about 30 per cent students of the Tribhuvan University are studying in public campuses.