BEST PRACTICE


Best Practices – 1

1. Title of the Practice

Training and Placement activities in cohesion with academics.

2. Goal The dynamic nature of Industry demands for highly skilled and competitive manpower that can effectively increase the productivity of the organization. The main goal of Training and Placement Cell is to bridge the gap between the stringent competition in the industry and talent available in the college. With adequate training and support, students enhance their skills and understand how to showcase their abilities in the best possible way.

The Oxford College of Science has a well fortified Training and Placement cell which takes care of all the training and placement related activities right from the admission of the student till they are onboard in their respective job.

3. The Practice The Placement Cell plays a major role in identifying job opportunities for Under Graduates and Post Graduates passing out from the college by keeping in touch with reputed firms and industrial establishments. The placement cell of the college had provided a good amount of placements as well as internships to all the students. The Placement Cell operates round the year to facilitate contacts between companies and graduates. The number of students placed through the campus interviews is continuously rising. On invitation, many reputed industries visit the institute to conduct interviews. The Placement Cell organizes career guidance programmes for all the students starting from first year. The cell arranges training programmes like Mock Interviews, Group Discussions, Time Management, Personal grooming, Inter and Intra personal skills, Team Building, Aptitude skills, Logical reasoning, Communication Skills, Mock Interview Sessions. It also organizes Public Sector Exam Training for students who are interested to join Government Sectors. Value Added Courses are conducted for the students in the area of emerging technologies and for covering the contents beyond curriculum with experts from industry and leading training institutes. It also invites HR Managers from different industries to conduct training programmes for the students. The College also provides free online soft skill and technical training certification courses for all the final year students whichhelp them to crack the interviews. Industrial visits for students, training, seminars, conferences, and expert lectures have also been organized to prepare the students for the opportunities that await them. The College organizes workshops on Entrepreneurship Development Program to create awareness about the GOI and GOK initiatives like Make in India, Start up India, Stand up India, E-Step, New Age Incubation Network (NINA) etc and encourage students to become Entrepreneurs.

4. Evidence of Success
The college has been successful in maintaining a high placement statistics over the years and the fact our students are ingenious alumnae who have set new standards in the corporate world through their admirable contributions.The Institute has MOUs with Corporate, Research Institutes, Universities and Training Instituteswhich motivates and enables the students industry ready.Theproven capabilities of our Graduates has helped us to invite increasing number of new Industries for Placement opportunities like Wipro, Syntel, Cipla, Paypal, NIIT, Biocon, Micro labs,Concentrix, Thermo Fischer, Strides, GE, HDFC Life, Omega Healthcare, Omnic International, Deloitee, Infocon, Capgemini, Molecular Connections,SAP Labs, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra and many more.

5. Problems Encountered and Resources Required The campus recruitment being one of the most important sources of recruitment for the major companies find the gap in the quality of students. The institution is working hard to reduce the gap between what the market demands and the knowledge level of the students. There are some challenges encountered by the college like time constraint, cost to the company, volatile nature of Industry, core company recruit in small numbers and few more. Interview time and company requirement sometimes clash with the University calendar.Measures like providing industry exposure to students helps to increase the experience in operations and industry needs to upgrade and up skill their knowledge. Constantly training the students by industry experts and research instituteshas helped to overcome some of the challenges and maximize the opportunities for the student’s fraternity.

Best Practices – 2

1. Title of the Practice
Effective Strategic plan, academic calendar and lesson plan

2. Goal Comprehending the relationship between strategic planning and quality of output, the college conducts a strategic meet at the beginning of every academic year involving all the departments. The objective of the meet is to define and achieve goals at the departmental level, identify and dissolve the various barriers in realizing the set goals. The Planning also emphasizes predetermining targets and designing an effective blue print for the entire academic year in the form of an academic calendar. The Academic Calendar serves as a complete information source on the various curricular, cocurricular and extracurricular activities of the college for students and faculty. Based on the academic calendar, the teachers prepare a lesson plan for their respective subjects. The lesson plan serves as the road map for students and teachers for the effective completion of theory and practical syllabus. Adherence to academic calendar and lesson plan facilitates a healthy, hassle free and active learning environment.

3. The Context
The Oxford College is well aware of the necessity to identify and analyze the SWOC Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Challenges of the institution to measure the growth and decide the future goals of the institution. The strategic meet is one of the tools employed in the college to coordinate all the departments under a single roof and assess the trends, success and challenges on various academic initiatives and activities. The Academic Calendar serves as a portal for faculty and students in all their academic and nonacademicendeavors. The lesson plan serves as a guide for both students and teachers and helps the students to be prepared with the subject topics aiding interactive learning in the classroom sessions.

4. The Practice
A Strategic meet encompasses two components the initial planning process followed by the actual strategic plan. Strategic planning helps to define and constitute the academic, cocurricular and extracurricular activities of the term. During the planning, Dean, Academics presents a review of the previous year’s activity of all the departments the principal of the college declares the thrust areas to be focused for the next year. The Heads of the departments and the faculty members chart out the activities plan of action based on the centralized academic calendar prescribed by the university. The principal, vice principals and members of IQACanalyze the feasibility of the proposed strategy and frame a consolidated plan of action for the college in the form of an academic calendar. The calendar comprises of all the activities of the college, important dates, internal examinations, public holidays, semester end examinations etc. Thus it serves as a draft for faculty and students in all their endeavors. Each strategic meet emphasizes on individual commitments, quality learning, promoting leadership, prioritydriven decision making, allocation of resources and institutional future. The responsibility of building, implementing and evaluating the strategic plan is shared among all of the College stakeholders. The lesson plan based on the academic calendar is designed to align the learning objectives of all subjects with the overall development of students. The lesson plan includes Name of the department, Subject, faculty, date, no of hours, individual topics, seminars assigned, and internal examination schedule which gives a definite symmetry to all the processes. Once approved by the Dean academics, lesson plans are circulated among the departments and the students. Prior to the internal examination, the heads of the departments conduct a review meeting on the syllabus completion and design strategies to compensate for any deviations found in the lesson plan.

5. Evidence of Success
The introduction of strategic meet has greatly helped the college to function as a unit rather than individual departments as the entire faculty and students are well aware and involved in the proceedings of the college. The integrated planning has immensely aided the entire organization to seamlessly execute the curriculum. The meet also provides a forum for all to share their views and ideas. The strategic meet and academic calendar guide the faculty and students in aspects like time table, activities of the departments, support services, faculty achievements, research contributions, RD progress etc. The distribution of the lesson plans in the beginning of the semester has helped the students to meticulously plan for the university semester examinations. In a nutshell, the strategic meet, academic calendar and lesson plan have created a highly positive impact on the overall quality of teaching learning in the institution.

6. Problems Encountered and Resources Required
The college did not encounter many problems during the implementation of the above practices. The introduction of these best practices received an overwhelming response from students and faculty. With the support of the management of the institution, the financial constraints were well resolved. Minor problems like uncertainty in the university calendar, unexpected holidays and detailed explanation of certain topics due to students’ interest slightly affected the implementation of the lesson plan which was compensated with extra classes. In the academic calendar industrial visits and guest lectures are planned by taking permission from the concerned industries and speakers well in advance. Due to emergency audits and unavailability of speakers, some events were either postponed or preponed. The major resources required were the support of the management and the complete cooperation of the faculty.