Education Desk:
The Balochistan Univesity of Information Technology Engineering and Management Sciences (BUITEMS) has launched Online classes for students as result of continued closure in the aftermath of the outbreak of novel coronavirus. Major reason behind the launching of Online classes is not to waste precious time of students.
Initially, the Online classes have been started for two departments including computer engineering and chemical engineering of BUITEMS, Dr. Faisal Ahmed Khan Kakar, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the university told Quetta Voice. Spokesman governor Balochistan secretariat through a statement on Thursday has also directed all public and private universities to launch Online classes in the wake of COVID-19 in the province. Higher Education Commission (HEC) has issued Online teaching guidelines in this regard, the Spokesman said.
“We will add all 32 departments to Online teaching by April 30th”, Dr. Kakar said. All educational institutions in the country were closed following the global outbreak of novel coronavirus. As per schedule, the academic year was about to begin in universities, colleges and schools of Balochistan’s winter zone from March 1st. However, the government extended the closure following global and national outbreak of novel coronavirus recently.
The system includes an online lecture delivery system that is interactive. It also includes the recording of the lecture that can be downloaded by the students if they’re not connected live, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor mentioned.
The novel coronavirus has impacted the education of 11,300 students currently studying in BUITEMS. The HEC has asked for detailed information on these courses in order to inspect the quality of the content, delivery and connectivity. Chairman HEC, Tariq Banuri has that if a university is found to be lacking in capacity to deliver good quality online lectures, they will be directed to halt such lectures until requisite conditions are met.
CoronaVirus: Educational institutions to be closed till March 31st in Balochistan
We have integrated our Learning Management System (LMS) that takes care of uploading all course material, reading material/quizzes and features off-the lecture correspondence between a teacher and students, he elaborated.
The closure of primary, middle and high schools across Balochistan has impacted the education of over 1 million students.
Connectivity of students in interior Balochistan is a challenge and we are trying to address concerns of students on that, he said. We are also working to come up with a relevant grading rule ( e.g. emergency grading rule as followed by Stanford, Princeton and other international universities during the COVID times).
