TITLE:  MOVING TOWARDS QUALITY EDUCATION…. A humble endeavor

OBJECTIVES OF THE PRACTICE:

• To understand new online format of NAAC and work hard for achieving Good Grade.
• To encourage and help the higher nearby education institutes of Gujarat for NAAC accreditation process.
• Organizing National Seminars at the institute to provide guidance on the new online NAAC accreditation format.
• Visit the nearest higher education institute and exchange ideas for quality education.
• To serve as an expert in state level NAAC sponsored seminars organized by other organizations.
• To guide the staff of other colleges by visiting this institute.

THE CONTEXT:

NAAC accreditation process is very important for enhancing the quality of higher education institution.  Going into the third cycle of NAAC accreditation, Principal Dr. Sanjay Shah and the entire IQAC decided to take this accreditation process as a celebration.  It was decided to involve all the Stakeholders throughout the process to enhance their feelings towards the Institution.

It was decided to get a good grade in NAAC accreditation by properly understanding the new online format of NAAC. To make efforts to increase the understanding of NAAC accreditation even in the surrounding higher education institutions and to participate in improving the quality of education of these institutions. It was decided by the Principal and IQAC to guide the surrounding higher education institutes as a mentor to benefit from the experience of this accreditation and also to involve them in the work of improving the quality of higher education.

THE PRACTICE:

• First, committees were formed as per the criteria of NAAC. Each of these committees was assigned to work on their criteria.  Data on all the details and activities of the organization were collected.  This data was analyzed and properly presented in the NAAC Self Study Report.
• IQAC prepared the information and required documents as stated in the Qualitative and Quantitative Metrics of each of the criteria and submitted them online on the portal of NAAC.
• After submitting the SSR, all the staff and students of the institute started preparations for the visit of the NAAC peer team. The management also had a very good cooperation.
• The institute organized training workshop on How to face Peer Team for staff on Dt. 16/08/2019. The IQAC also trained students for Peer Team Visit.
• The institute was visited by the Peer Team and they gave a comprehensive evaluation of the institute. In NAAC Accreditation, the institute got A + grade (3.45 CGPA) and got the first position in the whole of Gujarat in the new online format.
• Throughout the accreditation process all the employees of the institute gained first-hand experience on how quality education can be done in higher education institutions.
• To encourage, promote and educate the nearby higher education institutes for NAAC accreditation process the activities done by the institution attached.

EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS:

• Located in a rural area, this organization has greatly enhanced its reputation due to its excellent performance in accreditation. This has had a huge positive impact on the management, Principal, staff and students of the institute. It enhances the reputation of Institution in Society.
• More than 10 colleges and about 1000 Principals, IQAC Coordinators and teachers were benefited by our efforts for enhancing quality education through promoting NAAC Accreditation Process.
• The Principal Dr Sanjay Shah was facilitated for his leadership to achieve A+ Grade (3.45 CGPA) at 21th National Conference of Association of Indian College Principals organized at Nagpur on 6-8 February 2020.
• The Management of Institution organized a grand programme named “Hilloro” to facilitate the Principal and for staff for this great achievement.
• The Principal Dr Sanjay Shah was facilitated for his leadership for achieving A+ Grade (3.45 CGPA) at National Level Seminar on Dt 18/01/2020 at Smt M. P. Shah Mahila Arts College, Kadi
• Under the UDYAM program run by KCG, Government of Gujarat, the institute was selected among the top five colleges of the State for its outstanding performance in online education. This was announced by the Minister of State for Education, Shri Bhupendrasinh Chudasama on Teacher’s Day. The Institution was awarded Rs.1 lakh by State Government.
• The college has participated in Gujarat State Institutional Rating Framework (GSIRF) Recognized as 4 Star Institution during 2020, 2021 and 2022.

 

PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED AND RESOURCES REQUIRED

Problem: Many colleges were often sought for guidance of the NAAC.  If all the colleges were frequently visited for guidance the students of our college would have difficulties in their studies.

Solutions:

• Lectures/Seminars were organized on guidance of NAAC in different colleges so as not to spoil the study of our students.
• IQAC team of many colleges were guided about NAAC process by visiting the institution in person.

Resources needed:

• Principal and IQAC Coordinator
• IQAC and Administrative Staff of College
• Financial Assistance from Institution

1. TITLE: ANANDIVAN – A BOTANICAL GARDEN : Save Environment Save Lives…
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE PRACTICE:

Aim and objectives:

• Proper use of 25 acres of unused wasteland of the institute.
• Maintaining the environment of the institute by planting trees and bringing the students closer to nature
• Protect various rare species of plants and trees.
• Develop and maintain the Garden as a living attraction for birds and animals.
• Develop new areas of learning for botany and zoology students.
• Developing the park as an environment hotspot.
• To establish research and medicinal center.
• Get income from the fruits section and use it for Garden maintenance.
• For water harvesting, develop farm ponds in Garden.

3. THE CONTEXT:

The institute has about 49 acres of unfruitful fertile land. In this land, the untimely plantation of thousands of old acacia trees was engulfed. Dr Sanjay Shah, the Principal of the institute, got the idea of using this fertile land to make a huge Botanical Garden. The management approved his idea and thus the project became a dream project of the Institution. It is considered to be the help of forest department for this big project of environment. This environment related project was needed to build huge campus walls for tree protection while creating tubewells for tree plantation. To meet this requirement, the management cost of Rs 75 lakhs is to show its environmental sensitivity and social responsibility.
4. THE PRACTICE:

• 25 acres of unused land had a plenty of acacia trees, which was levelled and cleaned with the permission of the State Government
• With the help of forest department and as a part of the district ‘Van Mohatsav’, the park was developed in the premises of this institute.
• The honorable alumni and the Chief-Minister of Gujarat, Mrs. Anandiben Patel, approved the idea of Anandivan enthusiastically. The forest department named the park ‘Anandivan’

• The Management for Anandivan provided organizational and financial help. They helped in developing irrigation facilities worth 20 lacs INR in the area. An investment of 55 lacs INR was made for preservation and protection of Anandivan.

• With the guidance of forest department and life-science department of the institute, the land was divided and classified to accommodate various plant species according to their growth requirements. Nearly 10000 useful and rare trees of 270 species were planted.

• With the help and care of employees, students, teachers and the forest department, the project has achieved more than 80% of the envisioned success.
• A Van-kutir and about 3 ponds were developed in the park.
• The botanical name, common name and usages of all the species of trees and plants are displayed by Botany Department.
• The Science faculty obtained the permission to offer Botany majors from the institute.

Sections in the Anandivan:

Medicinal Plants Section	Sandalwood Forest
Rare and Endangered Plants Section	Fruit section 1
Trifala Van	Fruit section 2
Bamboo Plantation	Fruit section 3
Sustainable Plants Section	Bird forest
Arboretum	Children’s park
Mango and Lemon Trees Section	Decorating forest

 5. EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS

• Planting 10000 trees with 90% success ratio
• Planning of Garden Maintenance from Revenue from Various Medicinal and Fruit Trees
• Beautiful growth of trees in four years
• Various fruit yields have started and many birds have started living in forests

6. PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED AND RESOURCES REQUIRED

• There is a problem in leveling the land and removing the roots of old trees.

Solution: we have taken help of JCB machine to remove roots and level land.

• In a large area, tree plantation was impossible for Institution

Solution: The help of Forest Department was taken and through District Level Van Mahotsav the huge plantation was achaived.

• At high temperatures of 45 degrees in summer, trees were difficult to grow. If the plants are given continuous water, then they can survive.

Solution:  Two full time gardens have been designated for continuous watering to plants. As a result, we acquired 90% success ratio.

Resources needed

• Financial Assistance from Management
• Forest Department
• Staff of College
• Botany Department
• Huge amount of Water
• Fertilizers and Pesticides
• Gardening Equipments

1. TITLE: – NATIONAL SCIENCE TECHNO FAIR: Let’s Science Prevail…
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE PRACTICE:
Aim / Goal: –

• To develop scientific approach of school/ college teachers and grow curiosity towards science in them.
• To be cooperative in the procedure of social upliftment through spreading and canvassing science and technology.

Objectives: –

• To invite eminent scientist and scholars from various states of the country and plan conversation, discussion and debate.
• To invite expert teachers and talented students from various states and to involve them into various scientific activities.
• To organize a science project competition among students of various science colleges of the state.

• Under the guidance of well-known space research institution of the country, ISRO, various models of space shuttles and satellites can also be displayed and such a unique exhibition can be made available and easily accessible for the pupils and students coming from schools and colleges situated in rural

• Showing various projects by all the departments of all three institutions of the campus, an exhibition titled “Dr. J. D. Talati Maha Vigyan Pradashan” Great Science Exhibition’ can be planned to pay a sacred tribute to Ex. Principal and scientist Late Dr. J. D. Talati.

• Efforts should be made to make the students of all highschools, higher secondary schools and colleges of the district take more and more advantage of Science Techno Fair.
• More and more teaching and nonteaching employees of all three institutions of the campus can actively be involved into this multi tasked academic programme.

3. THE CONTEXT:

It is observed that in Mehsana District the students, who have recently completed their highschool study and joined the college, were lacking in interest towards science and scientific approach. In such circumstances, as a part of responsibility of our higher education institution, an idea grew in our mind to plan a “National Science Techno Fair” to increase scientific approach and curiosity. Such an idea, to make active the procedure of social upliftment through spreading and canvassing science and technology, was fortified by the Principal, Teachers and Management of our institution.
4. THE PRACTICE:

• It was decided that, with the accompaniment of Raman Science and Technology Foundation and All India Ramanujan Maths Club, National Science Techno Fair be organized jointly. It was also decided that the abovementioned Programme be organized by financial assistance of management of institution UGC and GUJCOST

• Eminent scientists from all over the country were invited to remain present in Science Techno Fair approximately 15 scientists remained present and inspired teachers and students through conversation and guidance.

• 10 teachers and 50 students from 8-10 states stayed here as esteemed guests and during couple of days they actively participated in various activities like science model making, science models presentation, science techno debate, science techno show, science quiz, oral poster presentation etc…

• One-day national seminar titled “Globalization of education through digitalization” was organized with the cooperation of Bhabha Research Academy, Gujarat and Council of Teachers education (CTE), Gujarat Sector on the date 15/07/2017. Approximately150 teachers and 50 research scholar all over the country participated in this seminar and presented their views through oral and poster presentation.

• An exhibition, including 24 sections, titled “Dr. J. D. Talati Maha vigyan Pradashan” was exclusively and jointly organized by various departments of all the three institutions of the campus, in which, all the teachers and 230 students displayed their projects. Moreover, the College Community Science Centre (CSC) also organized “A Funny Science Exhibition”.

• With involvement of ISRO, an eminent space research institution of the country situated at Ahmedabad, a unique and rare mobile exhibition, showing various models of satellite and Space shuttles, was also organized successfully and it had remained main attraction of the whole Science Techno Fair. For such a presentation, 50 students were provided guidance and due training by the scientist of ISRO. Approximately 10,000 teachers, students and citizens enjoyed this exhibition.

• A competition for 30 projects of science was held among 100 students of 10 colleges of the state and successful students were awarded.

5. EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS

• More than 15 National Level Scientists, 10 School Teachers and 60 Students of various States of India remained present.
• More than 10000 teachers-students-people of surrounding areas take an advantage of Inexhaustible ISRO and Dr J D Talati Grand Science Exhibition.
• About 500 college students were enlighten by science knowledge through active participation
• The Institution has promoted and popularized science successfully through this grand event.
• The media gave huge coverage to this event.

6. PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED AND RESOURCES REQUIRED

• It was necessary to suggest all the teachers and students of this whole area to remain present to take advantage of such a rare National Science Techno Fair.

Solution: Our institution humbly suggested District Education Officer (D.E.O), Mehsana to issue a circular for all the teachers and students of all the schools of the district insisting upon visiting this fair.

• Obstacle of heavy fall of rain, during these days, had been forecasted by weather forecast Bureau.

Solution: To avoid this obstacle, the whole exhibition was organized in classrooms.

• To manage a large numbers of teachers-students at exhibition is a great challenge.

Solution: Time slots have been allotted to schools for visit the exhibition to avoid crowd.

• Resources needed
  • Fund received from CPE scheme, 12^th plan Development Grant and Management
  • Team work of staff and students
  • Collaboration with Raman Science & Technology, Gujarat and Council of Teachers education (CTE), All India Ramanujan Maths Club and ISRO.
  • Coordination with B Ed College and ITI of campus
  • DEO, BRC and Surrounding School Principals

Title of the practice:-  Automation of the office work for accuracy and precision.
 
Goal:

The goal of the practice is to bring ease and efficiency in the administrative work. It is also to maintain accuracy, decency and accountability of the office work. It is to make office more transparent and increase its accessibility. It is eco-friendly practice that aims at making office work paperless and thus save the environment.

Context:

Office work is very strenuous. It is difficult to create record and maintain it. Moreover, the record is of different types and is maintained at different levels. It creates redundancy in the work. Thus office work is laborious and time consuming. One cannot expect complete accuracy in the office work as there remain number of human errors. As there is less transparency in the documentation, there is lot of scope for malpractices. It is also very difficult to maintain physical data in the form of papers and files and after certain period of time it has to be discarded. In that case retrieval of information becomes impossible. To overcome all these limitations of the office work and to make it more systematic and organized we have opted for office automation.
 
Practice:

For office automation we have installed Office Management Software. It has got office-task oriented useful tools. The complete automation of the office is possible by the use of this software. It has proved to be highly useful in the admission and enrolment process of the students. With the use of this software it has become easy to register the addresses and contact nos. of the students. This software can make the process of classification simplified and we can easily make the classification of the recorded data i.e. preparing students‟ list caste wise, category wise, medium wise, stream wise, gender wise and subject wise. We also use this software for preparing I-card of students. There is automation of complete admission process and fee-structure too. It can maintain fee register and can provide information of the pending fees in shortest possible time. With the help of this software admission process can be executed smoothly. The special feature of this software is that the source data is created in a very accurate manner. Once it is created, the same data can be shared in the library, internal mark calculation, scholarship section etc. Thus it leads to the sharing of the resources and avoid redundancy of the work. At the same time this data is systematic and has scope for multiple accessibility. It can be accessed from different points. The important notices and information are communicated to each student by SMS. Various certificates like, Bonafied Certificate, Transfer Certificate, Attempt Certificate, etc., can be issued by it. It saves lot of time and efforts of the office staff. Moreover, one can easily retrieve the information even after a long time.
Evidences of Success:

1. It has saved lot of paper work and unnecessary repeated work.

AQAR 2013-14 : Shrii U P Artts,, Smtt M G Panchall Sciience & Shrii V L Shah Commerce Collllege,, PIILVAII ((Nortth Gujjaratt)) Page 32

2. Office is equipped with updated, systematic data which can be accessed and retrieved any time.
3. It has minimized number of human errors in administrative as well as academic work and made it well organized.

Problems Encountered:

Installation and maintenance of the software is expensive matter. It also requires skills and training to operate the software. Sometimes it is a challenge to create accurate source data.

Title of the practice: – Soil Health Card Program –“Earn while you learn”

Goal:

The goal is to provide soil health cards for lands of farmers of Mehsana District. The project under-taken by college with direct involvement of students is intended to inform farmers regarding the health of land and the crops that will be suitable for the land. We take samples of soil and analyze it in the college laboratory to identify important soil elements (Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorous) present in soil and the conductance & pH of soil. A farmer with such a soil health card can identify which crop he should consider and how much fertilizer his land will require.

The Context

More than 65 % of the people of our nation have directly been engaged with agriculture, nevertheless, agriculture contribution in National Income is comparatively 15% less. In agricultural progress of India, the application of technological and scientific innovations have brought a plenty of changes, and thus, made a notable contribution in agricultural field.

To increase agricultural productivity, it becomes highly necessary for a farmer to know the soil elements of his farm before farming. The fertility and productivity depend upon inherent soil elements. If the farmer comes to know the proportion of important soil elements (N, K and P) present in soil and the conductance & pH of soil, he can easily comes to know which crop and how much fertilizer his land will require. Such a knowledge will lead the farmer to a large productivity of crops. With a view to making the farmer aware of abovementioned fact, the Government authorities of Gujarat have stirred an ambitious project to provide a Soil Health Card to each farmer of all over Gujarat.

The task of providing a Soil Health Card was rather huge and tiring. Moreover, the State Government didn’t have such a big infrastructure for agricultural research. In order to achieve this huge task of project in time, the State Government authorities handed over this project to the science colleges of Gujarat, because sample tests in such an enormous quantity were not possible at incomplete laboratories for agricultural research in Gujarat, and therefore, it was decided to get this task done by teachers and students of various

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science colleges of Gujarat and all the colleges accepted it. Accordingly, for last three years, the task of soil test & analysis is smoothly and successfully going on in Chemistry Department of our institution.

The Practice

• For this prolonged mission of Agricultural Development and for the programme of providing Soil Health Card to each farmer, the authorities of the State Government employed Gram Sevaks and some local agencies to collect soil samples.
• On scientific basis, these collected samples were labelled and sent to our laboratory for testing.
• The authorities of the State Government allotted the grant of Rs. 80/- per sample. This grant was useful to purchase necessary equipment’s and chemicals. This task was performed with the help of the staff and students.
• The collected samples were labelled and their elements: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, etc., were tested and analyzed. The pH and Conductance of the soil samples are also measured.
• Through accurate guidance, untiring efforts of students and teachers the following number of Soil Health Cards were prepared. Finance allotted to our institution and expenditure occurred during three years are as following.

Evidence of Success

The first success of this Programme, as we feel, is –we completed the analysis and testing of 9000 samples entrusted to our institution by the State Government authorities during three years. Thus, we successfully overcome the entrusted work and its philanthropic gain was enjoyed obviously by our institution, staff and students and by the society too.
Problems Encountered

We had to overcome this work without harming the routine teaching work. In such a consideration it was a challenge. Without violating the routine schedule of teaching on the part of teachers and students, this work was carried out after college hours and during the vacation period.