The essentials of holistic education is preserved in the campus while innovative changes are adapted. This sums up the best practice of the institution.
The mission, a philanthropic gesture, envisaged by the founding fathers is inclusive of all the stakeholders and their aspirations.
The parents who aspire to realize their dream for their wards, spend their earnings and their effort expecting the institution to mould their children as good human beings while empowering them with ‘job ready’ skills for professional life.
The young people who enroll in the college are a mixed lot; highly motivated with above average, intelligence as well as indifferent, directionless, misled with social media, with poor academic background and most of them with mercurial temperament.
The teachers who are in the field deal with the young people and are expected to reflect the ethos and sustain the rich legacy of the institution while fulfilling the aspirations of the stakeholders. In the process they have to find personal fulfillment and job satisfaction.
The best practice of the institution has to have a narrative and a system in place, fulfilling the expectation of the above category of people apart from the social responsibility with a global perspective.
In St. Philomena’s College it is a shared responsibility guided by the vision of the institution while updating and innovating. The Management with relevant policy decisions, adequate infrastructure, moral and psychological support and financial assistance for various activities ensure their role.
There are various committee and department level programmes organized apart from the IQAC Cell who directly ensure the training programmes for the faculty. Both the soft skills and hard skills are equally important in the teaching-learning process hence equal importance is given to both.
The philosophy of holistic education envisages the need for effective measures in the campus to create a mindset which will sustain human values and harmonious social fabric. Hence the need to train and update the teachers.
In the background of the pandemic new challenges were thrown up to reach out to thousands of students online. The first task was to train the teachers, update the ICT enabled teaching and learning. Number of training programmes were arranged within the campus as well as with other tech trainers at different levels to equip the teachers with skills to adopt to online teaching, interactions and assessment of students. With the use of Google Meet for online teaching and learning, every teacher felt competent and comfortable with the new normal. Even when the students were present in the classroom, teachers adapted to hybrid mode of teaching.
[To list some of the programmes arranged to equip the faculty are: on learning outcome based curriculum, Effective teaching based on the ethos and legacy of the institution, Improving the quality of research and creation of new knowledge, soft skills and holistic development, interpersonal skills, gender sensitization, enabling educators to teach new generation learners, gender, law and legal support for Indian Women’, importance of wellness in work life balance, changing perceptions and the self. These programmes were exclusively for the staff but ultimate beneficiary is the student. There were a good number of awareness programmes organized for students.
Health camps which help in adopting preventive measures, traffic awareness, various parameters, that make city life clean and comfortable. The international webinar on autonomous vehicles – the future transportation, minor projects on designing models all these gives impetus for research and development] with restrictions at various level and impediments during the pandemic the extension programmes and awareness programmes have contributed their education and development ultimately the staff and students have made the best use of the opportunities and challenges and are well equipped to face the situations. The institution has succeeded in their mission of retaining the human face with all the innovations and has evolved stronger for new ventures.