College At A Glance

1.   TITLE: Outcome Based Curriculum And Value -Added Courses

2.    Objective:

Ø  Ensuring the benchmarking of qualification standards that are globally recognized for their high quality.

Ø  Providing students with experiential learning and a practical approach to understanding.

Ø  Enhancing students' skills to effectively apply their knowledge in addressing real-time challenges.

Ø  Uncovering and refining students' hidden talents through exposure to diverse tasks.

Ø  To create opportunities for students to get employment

Ø  To empower students to become future job creators through Entrepreneurship.

3.    The Context:

               As India transitions into a knowledge-based economy, there's a growing awareness of the significant challenge posed by the mismatch between skills/education and available jobs. With a large percentage of youngsters entering the workforce each year, and large percent of students deemed not job-ready, it's imperative to address this gap. Therefore, the college has been consistently innovating and updating its academic structure to enhance the impact of education and focus on employability. This pursuit of educational excellence has led us to embrace Autonomy, the Choice-based credit system, and Outcome-based Education. Encouraging students to enroll in certificate courses, diploma and   value-added courses is a crucial step forward in this endeavor.

4.    The Practice:

Ø  Outcome based syllabus has been designed in every subject and continuously keeps on updating the curriculum so the students can get better opportunity for employment.

Ø  Skill enhancement courses has been introduced under NEP norms in all disciplines and made mandatory for the students to opt them.

Ø  Value added courses has been introduced and students have the option to develop skills which will help them in taking startups and become entrepreneurship.

Ø  Certificate and diploma courses are also available for the students.

Ø  Coaching classes, seminars and workshops are being organized regularly for the students on different skills and for scoring better marks in different competitive exams

Ø  General Elective courses has been made compulsory for the undergraduate students under NEP. Students are given free to choose the course of their choice which will give them support them in employment and self-employment.

Ø  Post Graduate diploma in computer science, Yoga & Philosophy and Master in Social work is attracting students.

Ø  Students are assigned projects and fieldworks.

Ø  Students are encouraged to get enrolled in MOOCS and NEPTEL.

 5. The Evidence Of Success:

Ø  Total 2730 students of various disciplines were provided projects works, internship and training programs.

Ø  Total number of value-added courses are 66 and 4733 students enrolled in this session.

Ø  Twenty departments have structured their courses to emphasize skill outcomes and enhance employability.

Ø  Seventeen skill-based certificate courses and seven Diploma courses are running to cultivate entrepreneurial skills.

Ø  Thirty-eight seminars and workshops has been organized to promote skill development in different fields.

Ø  Several memoranda of understanding (MOUs) have been established with premium institutions to enhance student benefits.

Ø  We've already implemented CBCS, under which 24 programs are currently available for the students.

6. Problems encountered:

Initially, students from rural backgrounds felt uncertain about their capabilities and potential. However, with guidance from the faculty, they were able to overcome their apprehensions, actively participate in all programs, and acquire the necessary skills and knowledge.  

1. Title of the Practice

       Mainstreaming Mentoring for Promotion of Quality Education

2. Objectives of the Practice

As the lead college in the Durg district, the college owns up the responsibility of mentoring at different levels (both school and college) on various aspects of teaching, learning, and extracurricular activities in addition to guiding the colleges towards NAAC accreditation.

The institution engages with:

1. Students of the college for their Academic, Professional progression, and Psychological and Spiritual wellbeing. Special attention and support are given to the students from Naxal affected areas for their improved performance.
2. Students from the schools of the district and villages to guide them towards English, Science, and Research.
3.  Young student Entrepreneurs to mentor their initiatives.
4. Colleges under UGC Paramarsh scheme: The College has the added responsibility of mentoring 14 other colleges that are to go through the accreditation process to raise their benchmark of quality education by providing support to understand the NAAC accreditation process.

3. The Context

The College is located at a vantage point in the Durg district and caters to students from both urban and rural(backward) areas of Durg district, other districts of Chhattisgarh, Naxal affected areas, and even other states and areas where avenues for higher education are non-existent or minimal. Hence the institution is committed to mainstream students from socially and economically marginalized sections through mentoring to ensure their academic, mental, and spiritual growth. Almost 60% or more students come from financially stressed backgrounds and seek scholarships and require both academic and personal guidance from time to time. The college also tries to expose the world of future education and research to the school children through visits and through program called INSPIRE. Young entrepreneurs need mentoring on their initiatives too. As a lead college it also mentors other colleges for improving their performance in NAAC appraisal. Skill development initiatives are included as per directives of NEP 2020.

4. The Practice

4.1 Mentor-Mentee :

Over the years the college has built a robust system of mentoring students through  Mentor- Mentee scheme in which each professor mentors 30-40 students and takes care of the issues raised by them, Guest lectures, Yoga sessions, Heartfulness meditation techniques for relieving stress, and counselling sessions.

4.2 Mentoring  Girls from Naxal Affected Families:

Special attention is given to the girls from the Naxal affected areas, who have been orphaned. Coaching for competitive exams,  Classes in their main subjects are also held in their hostel (Vigyan Vikas Kendra) to improve their academic performance. Mindfulness programs aimed at trauma healing are organized there for those who are still healing from the shock of losing their family.

Programs for Naxal affected girls include

• Life skills and preparedness for adulthood.
• Self Defence workshops: Karate to girls to strengthen self-defense skills in order to confront gender-based violence.
• Coaching for PSC, NET, & SET
• Departmental mentoring to address problems individual students may face.
• Counseling sessions for all students.
• Yoga and Heartfulness Meditation

4.3 School Students:

The faculty of the college makes the regular visits to schools to promote the students for higher education and career options for pure Science subjects. The college also has been organizing INSPIRE for 3 consecutive years to promote the culture of research in pure science amongst students.

4.4 Other Colleges Under Paramarsh Scheme:

As the lead college of this region and under the UGC Paramarsh scheme the college offers support to other colleges and mentors them through regular visits, lectures, creating online study materials, conducting FDPs to train faculty in teaching online thus raising the benchmark for quality education and preparing them for NAAC. It has also provided support to colleges lacking in appropriate human resources to understand and develop the Self-Study Report of NAAC, guiding the 10 mentee colleges to achieve better accreditation grades. Webinars were conducted to support and guide the colleges.

4.5 During Covid: The college organized online classes for students from across the district in all subjects enabled by a special digital link provided by the government. The faculty also counseled them when they were in distress.
4.6 Reaching out to the Third Gender: Taking a step to address Diversity and Inclusion the college has been organizing Webinars and joint programs involving the students of the college and the members at the Garima Griha to sensitize them towards the issues of the third gender. Counseling sessions are also organized at Garima Griha. A movie “De Taali” created by a faculty member was shown to the students.

4.7 The Entrepreneurship Cell offers mentoring to the young sharks to guide them with their startup plans. The new value-added and certificate courses are also aimed at skill development.

5. Evidence of Success

1. The number of students coming from conflict-affected areas rose from 108 in 2016 to 166 in 2021
2. Results of NET /SET / PSC/ and other services of 2016 - 2021 have shown that of the 491 students from our college who wrote the exams, 408 got through creditably.
3. Colleges that underwent mentoring for the NAAC SSR have shown remarkable up-gradation:
   • Shankaracharya  College whose ranking rose from B to A grade in 2021 the second cycle.
   • Swaroopanand college got upgraded from B to B+
   • Govt. V.V. Patankar Girls College was earlier ranked B+ now has improved to B++ grade.
   • 3 colleges attempting their first cycle have submitted their SSR successfully.

6. Problems Encountered and Resources Required

1. The Covid19 situation has made physical visits to the college difficult for the students since 1 ½ years. This led to resorting to online mentoring which has its own limitations. However, it was providential to be able to provide online mentoring - Many students suffered from or lost family members to Covid19, families lost livelihoods and morale. Students were thus much in need is counselling which was provided by the college’s Counselling Cell as also faculty of each department who held webinars for students on dealing with stress.
2. With Internet penetration being the second lowest in India after Bihar, the challenge in continuing to connect with students during the Covid19 crisis was that many lacked both tools for digital access and Internet connectivity from financial reasons. This situation changed with the second lockdown in 2020, and faculty urging students on phone to attend the online classes.
3. Adapting the curriculum to online mode.

1. Title of the Practice

         Cultural Connects to Inculcate Global Competencies and Create Global Citizens

2. Objectives of the Practice

The objective of the program is to develop an attitude of curiosity and openness, promote understanding of global culture while instilling pride in local and Indian culture in the minds of the students with the readiness to suspend beliefs about other cultures and one’s own.

           Primary Objectives:

1. Develop Global Citizen competencies of respecting other cultures and communicating in English.
2. To form connections globally (Internationalization) through the International Cultural Exchange program
3. Develop intercultural Communicative Competence
4. To promote cross-cultural interactions within India through Youth festival and the Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat Yojna
5. To promote the regional culture of the State Chhattisgarh through Curriculum, Festivals, Food, and Art.

           Secondary objectives:

1. The practice of Communicative skills in English with new vocabulary
2. Developing emotional intelligence
3. Learn new words and practice active listening
4. Make flyers
5. Learn to work in teams
6. Develop leadership qualities

3. The Context

Culture forms the basic framework for a student’s developing personality. Interaction with other cultures through peers and teachers has been known to provide a unique pathway to developing confidence, communication skills, and appreciation of diversity among students. Recently, UGC has brought out the “Educational Framework for Global Citizenship in Higher Education”, the curriculum draws from the National Education Policy 2020. The policy calls for students to become “aware of and understand global issues and to become active promoters of more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable societies” through culture studies and exchanges.  

Students of this college have been able to interact with the students of other states of  India and other (16)countries. The students of this institution come from the remotest region of Chhattisgarh including the Naxal affected regions. Giving them exposure to world culture is an effort to create global awareness in them and thus move them towards Global citizenship. The students on one hand are being strongly grounded in their own culture and being exposed to the world culture as well.    

4. The Practice

Building Competencies of Students Through Enhancement of Knowledge, Skills, Values and Attitude

Over the years the college has broadened its system to include not only academic material but also value-addition by way of mechanisms for personality development with global orientation and competencies. On one hand, it has been instrumental in promoting the regional culture of Chhattisgarh, instilling a sense of pride in the students' vis a vis their culture; on the other hand, it has strived to bring knowledge and respect for other cultures across the world. As the higher education system is trying to inculcate global competencies in students through “Global Citizenship Education (GCED) which refers to educational practices that seek to develop the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that are required by an individual to participate fully in a globalized society and economy, and to support initiatives aimed at building a more just, secure, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, and sustainable world, the program International Cultural Exchange aligns itself to this concept.

So far, the students have been showcasing the culture of Chhattisgarh through  Youth Festival competitions at the levels of University and State and the Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat Program, in which Gujrat and Chhattisgarh are joined in a cultural exchange program.In 2017 SOU Aditya Jha and in 2019 October  NCC Cadet Prerana successfully participated in the National Cadet Corps Youth& Cultural  Exchange Programme in Singapore and Russia respectively.

 International Cultural Exchange Program and the Virtual Café are endeavors of this institution to create an environment for the students to help them grow, learn, and appreciate the diversity of the world. The program started at the onset of COVID and the students learned about the cultures of Israel, Poland, Bosnia, and Montenegro through the guest faculties. The second phase took off in a planned manner from January 2021 and the students learned about the cultures of 10 different countries. The program is now in its third phase with faculties from 4 countries. During the program, the guest faculty shares information about his/her country’s culture and two Indian students showcase two aspects of Indian culture through presentations prepared by them.  The program is conducted by students who Introduce the guest, offer a vote of thanks, and also write a report on the event. Initially, this practice helped to develop various soft skills like leadership, communication, teamwork, etc in the students but over the years this practice has  also prevented academic regression, retained the English language, and taught other  skills

            Virtual Café

Building on the experience of the  Cultural Exchange program, the College has stepped it up with a Virtual Café program in collaboration with Braude College of Engineering Israel and Wroclaw University,  Poland. A group of 20 students from this College joined 20-22 students from each of the other two colleges online to share about India, their local culture and practices, and what they liked best about these. From an initial start with 45 students in 2020, the Virtual Café drew in 105 students by 2021.

5. Evidence of Success

1. The International Cultural Exchange Program was made open to students on a voluntary basis. The students’ strength has grown from 65 in 2019 to 105 in 2021.  
2. Both informal or formal feedback from students indicates the cultural exchanges have been a transformative learning process and they have been enriched by learning about other cultures and expanding their horizon regarding diversity.
3. The Google feedback forms administered to them – more in the nature of calling for responses in terms of 1-2 sentences – demonstrated that there has been an improvement in their language skills
4. Level of confidence and skills in presentation and public speaking have shown remarkable improvement. More students are expressing willingness to take up roles in future programs. The program is now exploring new countries in the new session and involving students in international projects.
5. This year the Virtual Café has grown bigger. University students from five countries (Israel, Poland, Romania, Serbia and India) are participating to engage in learning. The initial 45 students who took part in it has now expanded to 95 students, not only from the English literature classes but also from other streams like Science and Commerce.
6. The students’ feedback and Verbatims show that the sessions have taught them to respect cultural diversity while making them more inclusive in their outlook and

6. Problems Encountered and Resources Required

Students did not have the required Internet bandwidth to join Zoom platforms and use the video function on their smartphones for the Cultural Connect and/or Virtual Café. Internet bandwidth is low in Chhattisgarh villages and internet penetration is second lowest in the country as a whole. Mentoring the students in preparation for the online events including building their confidence was somewhat restricted by having to do all of this online over 2020-21.

7. Notes

The International Cultural Exchange program is aligned to GCED that helps learners recognize the importance of understanding and resolving global issues in their social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental dimensions. It seeks to instill values among learners and equip them with the social and emotional skills and attitudes that can facilitate international cooperation. GCED seeks to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to embrace their social responsibility to act for the benefit of all societies and generate solutions to solve the problems faced by humanity.

The Program is also aligned with the national campaign of  Ek Bharat Shreshth Bharat which aims to promote mutual understanding between people of different states/UTs through the concept of state/UT pairing, through a sustained and structured cultural connection in the areas of language learning, culture, traditions & music, tourism & cuisine, sports and sharing of best practices, etc. The College has planned a project of integrating college students of Chhattisgarh with students of Gujarat to learn and appreciate one another’s culture.

During the last two years of the Covid19 pandemic when there was complete lockdown for long spells, the program International Cultural Exchange served to motivate and engage the College’s students with students from other countries and their cultures entirely online. Cross-cultural and Intercultural Communication has helped to prevent academic regression, retained the English language, and taught other soft skills.