| Monday, Sep 15, 2008
For suburban educational institutions, the cut goes on
“We have difficulty holding morning assemblies without microphones ”
Chennai: Educational institutions have their set of challenges when it comes to
coping with the power crisis in the city. While some institutions say the situation
has improved considerably in the last couple of days, those in the suburbs say the problem persists.
V. Meenakumari, senior lecturer, Department of English, Anna Adarsh College,
Anna Nagar, says till a few weeks ago, there were power cuts lasting about half an hour.
“Even that was during our lunch break so it did not disturb classes. And now, we don’t have any power cuts,” she adds.
K.S.Babai, Principal of Meenakshi Sundararajan Engineering College in Kodambakkam says earlier,
power supply was cut from 10.30 a.m. to noon, for a week. “Being a professional college,
we have a generator. And we usually have the theory classes scheduled for the forenoon session
so that students are fresh. The practical sessions in the afternoon were not disturbed because
of this arrangement,” she says.
But for institutions in the suburbs of the city, the situation is slightly different.
“Every morning, there is no power from 9 a.m. onwards, for about two hours.
We have great difficulty conducting the morning assembly, since we cannot make
announcements without the microphones,” says the headmaster of a government school
in one of the southern suburbs.
Sometimes, the power cuts last longer than the announced duration, he points out
Another senior official of a leading educational group running schools and
colleges says his institutions have been affected badly due to the power cuts.
He feels the laboratory work has suffered. The group runs one school in central
Chennai and other institutions in the southern and western suburbs of the city.
“At the engineering level, all the sections are bound to have work in the computer laboratory.
We cannot reschedule the entire time-table according to the power cuts. It will upset the
institution’s rhythm. And invariably, the power disruptions last much longer than two hours,” he noted.
As a result, students have to work on Saturdays, too, to catch up on the missed practical classes.
“We do have generators, but finding diesel is becoming an even bigger challenge,” he adds.
Courtesy: The Hindu
|
