IQAC of SMS conducts seminar and workshop

The Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) of School of Management Sciences (SMS) Varanasi conducted two events over the weekend at its Khushipur campus. The first one was a Seminar entitled “Growth Prospects of Higher Educational Institutions under NAAC” addressed by the IQAC Coordinator of the affiliating University-Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith, Varanasi, Prof. Kripa Shanker Jaiswal (Director-Institute of Management Studies, MGKVP). The Seminar was attended by the IQAC members of SMS Varanasi besides other faculty and staff members of the Institute.

Welcoming the Guest, the Chairperson of IQAC (SMS), Prof. P. N. Jha (Director) said that after the Institution earned the A-grade in NAAC last year, the newer parameters defined by the accreditation institution NAAC-Bengaluru would make the activities further streamlined in order to retain the growth which SMS has witnessed during the decade gone by. The IQAC Coordinator (SMS) Prof. Alok Kumar (Dean R&D) emphasized on the ever-changing needs of higher education and acclimatizing to it quickly so as to continue on growth path. He said that recent changes in NAAC processes involving bringing of more objectivity (to the extent of 70 per cent) and that too under digital platform speaks of the direction in which HEIs need to go! He added that the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) environment thrown open to us has escalated the mental agility of the Higher education professionals and we must be ready for many more changes in the coming years, he added.

The Resource Person, Prof. Kripa Shanker Jaiswal opined that in a country like India, first educational infrastructure needs to be developed, then only accreditation compliance can be effective and fruitful. NAAC needs to show some flexibility too apart from objectivity in processing the accreditation applications. Moreover, all different accreditation and ranking mechanisms (including NIRF of MHRD) should be unified, he was referring to the fact that higher ranked institutions in NIRF did not fair that good under NAAC and also the vice-versa (exceptions apart). Online evaluation could be a serious challenge to all stake holders, he added. He also laid stress on the different parameters like alumni benefit, linkage to foreign universities, more academic excellence through different related pursuits, community service and innovative and sustainable practices etc which bring in better accreditation results. He assured all possible help to the IQAC of the Institution. The programme was conducted by Dr. (Mrs.) Anchal Pathak. IQAC Secretary Shri Sanjay Gupta (Registrar) was also present.

In yet another event, a Workshop was organized for the Library staff of SMS Varanasi and Lucknow entitled “Digital Libraries: Conceptualisation to Implementation” featuring Resource Persons Dr. Aditya Tripathi (HOD-Lib and Inf Sc, BHU) and Dr. Sneha Tripathi (CL, BHU) who trained the incumbents on Green Stone and D-Space (Digital Library platforms) which the institution is going to implement from the forthcoming session. On the occasion, the Library Coordinator of SMS Varanasi, Prof. Alok Kumar along with the Librarians of Varanasi and Lucknow campuses, Mrs. Pratima Bhargava and Mr. Shamit Srivastava were also present.