Chennai, Jan 6 (IANS): Students and teachers across Tamil Nadu are worried after the state government announced the closure of all colleges, except medical schools, amid the surge in new Covid-19 cases triggered by the new Omicron variant.

Most of the students are yet to complete their first-year syllabus and were slowly learning to cope with writing long essays and descriptive answers unlike the online format which they have been following since the previous lockdowns.

In some colleges, practical exams were also underway to prepare students in handling examinations by conducting model test papers on descriptive writing.

M. Raghunathan, Professor with Government Arts College in Madurai told IANS: "The students were slowly coming to terms with the writing techniques and classes were slowly getting back to normal. Now, suddenly the cases have shot up, colleges have been asked to shut down and students will be back to square one. However, health is of prime importance and the rest can be worked out."

R. Bindu, a student of the Government Arts and Science College in Chennai, said: "I was slowly coming to terms with descriptive writing and now colleges have been closed and we will now have to appear directly to offline examinations commencing from January 21 and it will be tough to write these answers after an online study."

Teachers, however, are confident that the offline examinations announced by the universities will be conducted as usual and physical classes will be resumed after the situation is back to normal.

P. Prakash, a Government College professor in Erode told IANS: "The students had taken practical classes and in some cases, exams were also conducted. Now, we will have to wait to figure out how the remaining practical exams are to be conducted for Physics, Chemistry, and Biology students. Waiting for the directions from the university and higher education department."