Our institute runs on its credibility for providing quality education and making efforts for proper placement of its students, says Prateek Sanghvi, Vice-President, Sanghvi Institute of Management and Science (SIMS), Indore, in an interview with Rozelle Laha
Prateek Sanghvi, Vice-President,
Sanghvi Institute of Management and Science (SIMS), Indore
What initiatives have been taken by the SIMS for quality improvement in higher education?
The first and the foremost thing is that we have no control over admission plan for engineering courses. The intakes are taken after counselling where a student opts for the college. There is an amalgam of students from public, government, and Hindi and English medium schools.Our faculty members undertake a lot of effort to ensure that these students become employable after four years of engineering and two years of MBA from the institute.
As you said, admissions, being a centralised counselling process, is not in your hands. Have you ever thought of introducing a separate institute-specific entrance test?
We have started an AICTE-approved PGDM course where everything — from conducting an entrance test, selecting intakes for the course, designing curriculum and picking up faculty — is managed by us. We also shortlist companies for summer internships for our students. Those students who opt for this programme are employable on a better level than those who have joined the regular MBA course. Quality assurance is a question mark as far as the employability scale of students coming out from privaterun and regular MBA courses is concerned. Courses for engineering or management have not been re-engineered in government-run institutions for decades according to the demand of time and it affects the employability prospects of students.
What are the challenges in imparting higher education in Madhya Pradesh?
In Madhya Pradesh, one needs to go through a lot of legalities, fulfill each and every norm, and run around scores of government institutions to get clear ances for a higher education course. You have to ensure that your professional integrity is maintained and no false agreement is made with any agency. Fortunately, in the last seven years, we have tried to keep our slate clean.
What is the level of technology implementation at SIMS?
So far as major post-graduate level courses like MBA, MCA, MTech and PGDM are concerned, we have deployed almost all the eLearning tools like e Journals, eBooks, etc. Our ICT-enabled library has all the facilities to meet the demands of the students and the faculty. If a student misses a class, he can access it at the library where it is stored online. But at the undergraduate level, we need to put in more efforts to make the learning technology-friendly. Right now,we have digitised all the course material and made it interactive for the students. We have graphic designing solutions to help student get 3D images of labs to understand the practical courses. We are in the process of introducing many more IT- enabled solutions in our campus.
What is the vision of SIMS in the coming years?
In the next couple of years, I would like to see SIMS as a full-fledged university under the University Grants Commission and not under the state govern ment, where students from all economic strata can fulfill their demands for higher education.