Longer hours in the classroom

Vidya Vardak Sangh sees students’ performance improve with the introduction of 90-minute period in all its colleges

Students in a classroom at Appa Institute of Engineering Technology in Gulbarga city. Photo: Arun Kulkarni

The path-breaking teaching and learning process introduced in the professional and degree colleges run by the Sharanbasaveshwar Vidya Vardak Sangh has brought about a qualitative change in the learning experience of the students and an upswing in their performance in the examinations.

The Vidya Vardak Sangh, which runs more than 40 degree and post-degree colleges and professional institutions, has been the first institution in the entire region to introduce the 90-minute period in all its engineering, business management and tourism administration colleges.

The innovative concept of increasing the teaching hours in the classroom was the brainchild of Poojya Sharanbasvappa Appa, Chairman of the Sangh. In a chat with The Hindu in Gulbarga city, he said that the main reason for increasing the teaching hours was to achieve the twin objective of improving the writing skills of the students and providing them the opportunity to revise what they have learnt in the presence of their teachers instead of revising in their homes.

Of the 90-minute period, 45 minutes is for hard teaching. The students are then allowed to refer the books available in the mini- libraries established in all the classrooms for the next 15 minutes. In the remaining 30 minutes the students write in their notebooks what they have learnt in their own words without any dictation from the teachers.

Cumulative effect

Dean of the Appa Institute of Engineering and Technology Anilkumar Bidwe said that the introduction of the 90-minute period three years ago had a cumulative effect on the results in all the education institutions including the Appa Institute of Engineering and Technology. The pass percentage of students in the Electronics and Communication department had gone up from 75.4 in 2012to 81.6 in 2014. In the Computer Science and Engineering Department it had gone up from 71 to 82.7. The Mechanical Engineering department, which churned out the first batch in 2014, recorded a pass percentage of 94.4, and the Information Science and Engineering department which had a pass percentage of 50 in 2012 had achieved 79.6 per cent in 2014.

The number of distinctions had gone up considerably after the new system was introduced.