Scholar support programme to be launched in four Universities

Four universities in the state- Kerala, MG, Calicut and Kannur- will pilot the Scholar Support Programme, a new intervention of the Department of Higher Education to support students in need of academic help.

 The programme to be initiated this academic year would target students of first semester degree in the colleges under the four universities.

  One of the highlighted points in higher education in the Governor’s address in the Assembly in March, the Scholar Support Programme has selected six disciplines in each college in which the students need curricular support.

  The subjects were chosen based on an analysis of the examination results in the universities in the last three years.

 The Higher Education Principal Secretary had appointed a two-member committee comprising K P Jaikiran (Assistant Professor in Geology) as nodal coordinator and T A Anand (Assistant Professor in Hindi) to be guided by P K Velayudhan, Additional Director of Collegiate Education for the result analysis.

  The team visited the four universities, collecting data related to the Choice-Based Credit and Semester System (CBCSS) and analysed the data in BA/BSc/BCom/BBA programmes. A methodology was employed to calculate the weighted grades and composite index college wise, which revealed the weak courses. This varied from History of English Language (English) to Probability theory (Mathematics) and Animal Diversity (in Botony) in various colleges.

 “In some colleges we found students needed help with English and in others it would be Mathematics. We have chosen around 40 subjects in all the universities in which extra academic materials would be developed for the students. A couple of workshops to select the resource persons to develop this additional curricular material have got over. We will give shape to a resource team soon for content development,” said P K Velayudhan.

  The department is looking for expert teachers in their respective subjects who would be able to develop content that would keep the student hooked to the subject.

  The next step before the department is to arrive at the guidelines to be followed during the creation and delivery of content and assessment tools.