Sri Padmavathi Mahila Viswavidyalayam (SPMVV), AP’s one and only women’s university in Tirupati in Chittoor district, has embarked upon a unique mission to strengthen the School of Social Sciences, Management and Humanities with its 10 vibrant post-graduate courses by imparting skill development, leadership training, communication skills, and placements to its students.
SPMVV Dean (Social Sciences) D.B. Krishna Kumari told The Hindu that in spite of the strong tilt towards engineering and medical streams in recent years, the varsity could operate courses in social sciences, management, and humanities with substantial success rate by following the motto - empowerment of women through acquisition of knowledge. As part of this, all women students must get trained in the aspects of communication skills and computer knowledge, which forms the potential ground for entering the corporate world. Prof. Krishna Kumari said over 80 per cent of the students, pursuing studies in SPMVV, were from the rural areas and availing themselves of the government scholarships.
“The process of acquisition of knowledge is being split to cover all the four semesters of their PG courses. At first they are given a thorough orientation in English language skills slowly building their confidence levels, followed by computer knowledge, life skills and field outreach modules. Our orientation classes with a mix of Telugu and English languages could produce good results with students from complete rural background. From the fourth semester onwards, our active placement cell sends the students to various government, NGO and corporate units for training, internship, in addition to guiding them to grab jobs,” she said.
By involving faculty from the departments of women studies, social work, journalism, law, English, management, commerce and physical education, the School of Social Sciences also offers special classes to girls in personality development and modules required for facing tough competitions in the job-market. “Our students are overwhelmingly responding to our programmes, gradually overcoming the fallacy that jobs are the monopoly of women from the urban sectors,” Prof. Krishna Kumari said.
On the rise
The Dean said that during the last couple of years the number of students joining social sciences stream gradually increased, and the current academic year 2016-17 remained more prospective compared to the previous years.
