SHRI GURU BUDDHISWAMI MAHAVIDYALAYA

Our goal is “to provide quality higher education services to the socially deprived and economically weaker classes in the Taluka of Purna”. As the majority of our students are from such sections of the society who are less informed and whose motivation levels are very low. It has been a challenge to attract students and sustain their interest in higher education. We have been continuously trying to develop innovative ways to provide not only quality services in teaching-learning-evaluation, but focusing mainly on the holistic development of students. Our priority and thrust area is ‘Student Affairs’. It is the group of individual committees, in charge of supporting the academic as well as non-academic, personal development of students. The committees include: academic advising, admissions, addressing grievances, counselling, career services, and all-round development of students. In other words, in addition to the curricular, the co-curricular and extra-curricular activities have been fairly focused. The committees are:

·      Student Development Cell

·      Student Counselling Cell

·      Mentor-Mentee Scheme

·      Skill Development Committee

·      Earn and Learn Scheme and Incentives for the Performers

·      Career Guidance and Placement Cell

·      Women Empowerment Cell

·      Equal Opportunity Center

·      Student Grievance Redressal Cell

·      Anti-ragging Committee

·      Internal Complaints Committee

Apart from these student-centric committees/cells, students are given representation on various statutory bodies, like, College Development Committee, IQAC, Student Development Cell and Equal Opportunity Cell.

Student Development Cell: A statutory committee aims at enriching the campus life by promoting in them organizational skills and inculcating the values of education and assists students in their academic pursuits and overall personality development. The committee also oversees annual elections to the Student Council. As the University made no concrete attempt to conduct elections to the Student Council, the Cell had recommended for ‘Young Inspirators Network (YIN)’ by Sakal Media Group under ‘Delivering Change Foundation (DCF)’. The Foundation promotes ‘Leadership Development Programme (LDP) through YIN to nurture young minds to become socially responsible leaders and also serve as a bridge between the society and the government.  It is observed that through YIN students got an exposure towards the personal development, professional growth and social impact. 

Student Counselling Cell: One of the most ambitious practices introduced by SGBMP is Student Counselling Cell, established in 2019-20. It is the outcome of a successful implementation of ‘Mentor-Mentee Scheme’. Realizing that the problems of mental health could not be properly addressed through the Mentor-Mentee scheme, the Cell came into existence. The College has a regular teacher of Psychology at the Junior College level who received training in professional counselling. Counselling is a ‘talk therapy’, which empowers students to face academic as well as personal challenges effectively. The Cell, apart from offering individual counselling to concentrate on studies, provides general counselling which helps students to leverage the strengths of values such as collaborations, empathy, lateral thinking, self-aware leadership, networking and negotiation skills. It teaches students to shun extremes in ideology and thought, and following the middle-path forged through tolerance, dialogue and debate and reconciliation and consensus. The regular activities conducted throughout the years are: Personality Test; Mental Health Test; IQ, EQ and SQ Tests; Self-confidence Test; Stress-scale Test and Mental Depression Scale Test.

Mentor-Mentee Scheme: Mentoring of students is an important part of our system that provides necessary guidance in academics and on campus activities. The practice warrants that every student gets a mentor immediately after the first unit-test results. The total number of students are divided by the total number of teachers, including the CHB faculty. The mentors guide the mentees on academic and personal problems. If the mentor finds any student suffering from depression or low spirits, he/she refers to the counselling cell.

Skill Development Center: Another significant practice under ‘Students Affairs’ is the establishment of Skill Development Center, which aims at enhancing skills in students and make them industry-ready. The Center has introduced 13 Value-added/Skill-enhancement Courses for students on-roll. The courses aim at training students in creative, cognitive, problem-solving skills; articulation skills; technology skills; and holistic real-world skills.

The College has established two MOUs, the one with Yuva Parivartan, a unit of Kherwadi Social Welfare Association which is an Approved Training Partner of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). Another one is with Skillioma, a brand name of Ilumen Private Limited. Skillioma is an end-to-end comprehensive solution to the problem of unemployability. It offers Industry Readiness Skills through certificate (stem.org USA) courses via a blended learning platform for all majors/departments. The training programmes includes MEITY FSP NASSCOM and NASSCOM Foundation. In addition to the above, the College has established MOUs with another 13 institutions for student exchange.

Earn and Learn Scheme and Incentives for the Performers: The College is a government-aided one, hence, students from socially-deprived and financially weaker sections get freeships/scholarships. The College has devised a mechanism, Earn and Learn Scheme, to help them for books and stationery by making them work either in the Library or College Garden or in the Computer Center.

The Management has instituted Best Student Award for the outstanding performers. Three students, each one from Arts, Commerce and Science is awarded with a Memento, Certificate of Appreciation and Cash Prize of Rs. 1000/ every year.  The Management and the staff together have instituted awards over Rs. 25000/ worth cash prizes every year for the meritorious students in academics and sports.

Career Guidance and Placement Cell: SGBMP has a very active Career Guidance and Placement Cell, which organizes guest lectures every year, inviting peers from the industry to prepare students for the competitive examinations and make them industry-ready.  It has already conducted Three Placement Camps on campus in the last couple of years, with the help of Times of India Group and 59 students have been selected as Relationship Managers in the ICICI Bank

Women Empowerment Cell: As the enrollment of women is around 50%, the College has shown greater commitment for the cause of holistic development of girl-students by providing healthy hygiene environment (provided sanitary-napkin-vending and sanitary-napkin-destroying machines; regularly conducted health check-ups, etc) and proper infrastructural set-up for their empowerment (providing legal-education and skill-training).