I try to connect research to employability: Dr Chandekar
| Date :05-Apr-2019 |
By Vikas Vaidya:
Dr Murlidhar Chandekar is the Vice-Chancellor of Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University. He has completed over two years in office. While talking to ‘The Hitavada’ he talked on various aspects of higher education and his achievements as a Vice-Chancellor. Below are the excerpts: Can you brief about your achievements in last two years? When I took charge of Vice-Chancellor, I had planned 3-4 things that were to be done in my university one by one.
They include employability, personality, connecting university to community, quality of education. In my first year focussing on employability, I made tie-ups with some industries. It was with an intention to include, components related to industry, in curriculum can be helpful. We organised employment convention wherein the first year 3,700 students applied and 980 got the employment. This year 4,500 students were registered, out of which 1,400 got jobs. This will be our regular activity now. We did sign Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with TCS that helped students to groom their personality. Universities are under criticism for the dwindling quality of education. Do you agree with it? I don’t agree with it. At Government level efforts are always being taken to enhance the quality. It depends on the individual university how much it endeavours.
As I told you, in my initial phase I have focussed on increasing employability of students. That does not mean we are not taking measures to improve the quality. It is the continuous process which every university does. We have to take global needs also into account. It is usual scenario that the students have lost academic connect in universities. Number 2. universities are merely playing the role of administrator. Have you tried to establish connect of students with university as far as academics is concerned? New act of Maharashtra Public Universities has introduced the system of various Boards like Information Technology (IT), Board of Incubation, Board of Research, Board of Linkages etc. This will help in connecting students academically to the universities in our State. Universities have major role to play apart from being administrator in higher education. Research in universities has come to an halt. Have you taken any step that would encourage research? Research can not be in the same volume in all universities. We encourage students to do research.
We ask them to exhibit their research projects where we invite industrialists. Industrialists give their remarks and also suggest some changes if needed. We are trying to connect research to employability as through these projects they can have self employment. We have constituted Vice-Chancellor Academic Excellence Fund through which we provide money to students, faculty who have not adequate money. We have made a provision of Rs 20 lakh. In most of the universities, issue of curriculum is not addressed properly. What steps have you taken to keep syllabi of all subjects updated in your university? In university act lot of provisions have been made which are mandatory for us, through which curriculum is being upgraded. Students always cry for problems in valuation.
How will you rate Amravati university on the 10-point scale for valuation aspect? After implementing examination reforms by the universities, the valuation system in all universities has got streamlined. Valuation became on-line. There are various indicators because of which valuation has become accurate. Now we hardly receive any complaint regarding the valuation. I shall not claim our system runs with zero-error. To err is human!
