Goa university plans to open classrooms for employed, officials

PANAJI: Goa university (GU) seems all set to embrace a wider range of students and the classroom will no longer be limited to students of a fixed academic background and age group.
GU is awaiting the visit of a peer team from the national assessment and accreditation council (NAAC) this monsoon and a self-study report has already been submitted to the body by the varsity for review.
The report has committed to the NAAC that Goa university's future plans include designing new integrated multi-disciplinary courses, some of which will be of a short term nature and will attract "other components of the society like civil servants, elected representatives, and corporate employees etc."
Courses with a flexible structure will also be designed to draw back 'in-service youth' to the classroom which will help them upgrade their educational qualifications.
Similarly, short term training programmes will be designed for teachers in areas such as pedagogy, research methodology, teaching learning practices, management of research, etc.
"To create a vibrant academic link to stimulate learning at the undergraduate level, the academic interaction between university departments, faculty and undergraduate colleges, teachers will be enhanced," the self-study report to NAAC reads.
GU's doors will be opened for undergraduate students too by encouraging the university's departments to run summer workshops with appropriate proportion of practical and theoretical skills that will earn them marks and the varsity's certificates.
The report to NAAC also reads, "In consonance with the expectation of new modes of delivery of higher education, the university will explore the possibility of starting open and distance learning programmes through technology enabled means."
GU also plans to extensively use the internet in the near future to carry out 'online admissions, testing, and communication with applicants in addition to academic use.'
The varsity plans to set up a 'University Innovation Cluster' where Goa university will act as a nodal institution in building an innovation network that will include the industry, national institutes existing in the state and affiliated institutions to ensure optimum use of human and infrastructural resources.