Question

How are universities and K-12 institutions supporting their students, staff, and faculty amidst the pandemic? How has the pandemic influenced dietary habits among students?

Answer 1

The universities and K-12 institutions are indeed playing their best role and have come up with varied solutions for satisfying students, staff, and faculty during the current pandemic (COVID-19).

The very first blessing for students is the online/ virtual classrooms/ lectures/ inputs. Many universities and K-12 institutions are using platforms like Microsoft Office 365, Zoom, You Tube, Facebook Live and Google Classroom.

GateTutor and the allied websites are also proving helpful for students through faculty members' initiatives. It's true that there's a difference between the real classroom and virtual clasroom. But utilising these difficult times for value addition is a tough task and staff from the universities and K-12 insitutions are doing their best.

Staff and faculty members are instructed to work from home and this has minimised the chance of being COVID-19 positive.

The salaries of the staff have not been affected so far and everyone is getting paid as per the norms. In case of emergency or any necessary work which cannot be avoided, there's a deep care taken by the universities. The related venues are sanitised and medical practitioner is also available.

In some cases, staff have been distributed the N 95 masks.

Further, dietary habits among students have also been influenced deeply because of the current pandemic.

The availability and accessibility in the context of food is decreased. The healthy food basket is also with the decline of some of the food stuff.

Students have been attempting to choose and go for the ideal diet which they persued so far but as it was not possible due to above mentioned facets, they are falling short in terns of proteins and vitamins.

The increased inclination towards smoking and liquor during pandemic has also affected their routine intake of food.

A good percentage of students are catious about the possibility of weight gain dut=ring loack down and hence are avoiding many food items that are available.

The good thing is that fruits and milk are without the disturbed supply and this is a boon for students.