With colleges and universities closed, to maximize time utilization Ranchi University (RU) has been conducting classes via its community based radio show- Radio Khanchi 90.4 FM. The online classes were started on March 22 and the varsity till date has uploaded as many as about 1180 lectures for upto 12,000 minutes in more than 30 subjects on its official YouTube channel.
Tribal and Regional Language (TRL) has 235 sessions where as there are about 179 lectures on Hindi and 98 in yoga. Sessions for both undergraduate and post graduate students are being conducted through this radio channel. Besides the online radio classes, pre recoded lectures are also being broadcasted on its radio show every evening from 6 pm to 9 pm. Presently, the varsity has lectures for semester II and IV. The teachers will soon be sharing talks for semester I and III as well.
“In these tough times, these sessions are a boon for RU. It is also proving to be very beneficial to pay contractual teachers who are paid on a per class basis. The response from the students has also been very positive and they also give the teachers ideas on how it can be done better. All faculty members are connected with them on WhatsApp where they are getting their doubts cleared. The biggest advantage of Radio Khanchi is that the varsity is able to reach students in the remote areas as well,” said Dr Kamini Kumar, Pro Vice Chancellor, RU.
“With the outbreak of the virus, it was a great idea to record the lectures for the benefit of the students. The Vice Chancellor, teachers and students have shown immense support in making it a success. The team of Radio Khanchi has done a tremendous job of processing, editing and proof reading all the sessions before uploading each one of them,” said Director Radio Khanchi Anand Kumar Thakur.
While the faculty members are in favour of conducting classes through a radio show, RU students on the other hand have mixed opinions about the same. With no other options left but to hold classes online, students find it difficult to get their doubts resolved.
“The sessions no doubt are very good. It is great for those with theory subjects but for students from science and commerce streams, the audio lectures are not too beneficial. For practical subjects a one- to- one interaction is essential which cannot happen over a radio broadcast. The varsity has also claimed that about 80 percent of the course has been completed through online classes, which in my opinion is not true,” said Aniket Aman, M.Com first year students and Joint Secretary, Department Student Union RU.