The nation wide lockdown due to pandemic Covid-19 has initially thrown higher education in deep crisis but the universities and many colleges in India have been able to adopt online teaching from home. It is all the more gratifying that the young students have found online classes both interesting and greatly satisfying, says eminent Academician Prof PB Sharma, vice chancellor of Amity University Gurugram.

At Amity University the use of technology in education was already well integrated in our education innovations and   almost the entire academic management was on IT savvy Amity Intranet *Amizone* that is the backbone of Amity academic and administrative e- governance. 

 Further, the Amity University has a long experience of online classes that were going on years for  great many African Countries live from its e-education studio at Amity University Noida.

The IT team of Amity has made excellent arrangements for conduction online classes in all its Amity Universities across India utilising Microsoft Teams, Microsoft LMS, Zoom meetings of HoIs and faculty  and also trained its faculty in all the Amity Universities for use of e-platforms and the LMS system.

This prior preparation came quite handy to smoothly  switch over to conduct Online Classes from home, the minute the university was closed ever since March 14th.

As per the online reports being received from various institutions in Amity University Gurugram, the attendance of students in online classes  is almost 90-95% , more so because the attendance of students. The  timely conduct of online classes as per schedule is automatically recorded thus  and leaves no room for alteration later on.

The online classes have become a great saviour for higher education in India during the present Pandemic Covid-19 crisis and have paved the way for a more effective integration of online and off line teaching learning environment that the UGC and MHRD has been trying to create for some time.

The online classes are also providing a great leaning experience both for the students and the faculty. At Amity University Gurgaon, we have also asked our faculty to record as many classes as possible and thus create  and upload online e-resourses for further use by students.

As vice chancellor of AUH,  I feel so satisfied that despite the threat of disruption of higher education caused by the Pandemic Covid-19 virus crisis our faculty has been able to cover fully  even semester syllabi and also conduct Online tests for internal continuous assessment.

The challenge now is to prepare for Online Conduct of End Semester Examinations if the lockdown continues beyond the 21 days ending on April 14th.

I am also very happy to note that my fellow vice chancellors across the country have taken up the task of keeping their academic activities going on online systems. For us besides the safety and protection from pandemic virus, the protection of academic and professional  interests of our students is of paramount importance. 

I express my deep sense of gratitude to my Heads of Institutions and the learned Faculty members for their  excellent cooperation in making online teaching learning environment  so enriching and highly  successful.

In line with the vision of the founder president of Amity Education Group, Dr Ashok K Chauhan we are fully committed to empower each one of our students of Amity with the world quality education and research and innovation acumen and also to make our faculty deeply engaged in society and industry relevant R&D, says Prof PB Sharma, Vice Chancellor AUH who is also the Founder Vice Chancellor DTU and RGTU Past President of AIU.

– Prof PB Sharma, Vice Chancellor, Amity University Gurugram