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RK University Bhavnagar, Gujarat. Get details about Admission, Courses, Syllabus, Fees, Placements, Cut-off, Rankings, Scholarships, Reviews, and more on UniversityKart.

Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentleman.

Its an extraordinarily special day for me. Educational transformations and learning experiences, be it engineering or otherwise take up the entirety of my waking life. As a member of RK University, I am honoured that we have the privilege of hosting this conference. And as someone who cares about education, I am filled with hope seeing you all here thinking, talking and finding ways to build better institutions. But I am also deeply aware that our collective work here is a constant struggle with resistance to change and a constant endeavour to keep learning.

I want you to think about RKU and what it represents from a perspective that I want to present. I think RKU and things happening at RKU are highly UNLIKELY. Why do I use the word “unlikely”? Unlikely means not likely to happen, be done, or be true; improbable. I’ll share a few anecdotes and hopefully it will be clearer.

Founding of the institution by an unlikely visionary

We are all gathered here in an institution which was founded by the singular vision of one man, our President. Just imagine the unlikelihood of this happenstance. Picture this: A young boy of 10–11 years in 1970’s; living in a dire poverty, pulling vegetable cart and polishing shoes at railway stations supporting a family with 9 siblings. Fast forward 3 decades. We have a global conference aiming to nudge the narrative of engineering education of this country. How unlikely this journey, how unlikely the outcomes.

Oasis in the desert

While you are here, I encourage you to walk around the campus. Take in the sights, colours, sounds and smells of the campus. Count the different kinds of trees you can find. Or the different kinds of flowers you can see. Sit in the shade of the massive Neem tree or walk the long trail from University plaza to the Highway Entrance Plaza and see the climbing vines and flowering shrubs. Then stop and think: We are practically in a desert. Perpetually water starved. Monsoons without rains and rivers running dry, we dig holes in the very ground that we stand. We salvage every last drop. In the hopes that one flower blooms. One tree gives shade. One more colour to see. Some more oxygen to breathe. How unlikely the story of the Oasis in the desert.

Small City Blues

I am sure Krishna would have had a few sleepless nights mulling over whether to host this conference in the little town of Rajkot. We are an unlikely choice, if you measure us by the standard parameters of size of the city or its connectivity or just being there, historically, on the map of academic affairs. How unlikely that a small, young university manages to have these amazing inspiring people here together for these two days. How unlikely this happenstance that what we are doing here must be something special that warrants your presence here.

Struggling with admissions, talking transformations

As most of you know, higher education sector, specially, engineering, is in a state of turmoil. Enrolments have seen massive drop. Competitive landscape keeps getting more and more dense. All this in an environment which is over-regulated and under-governed. Stifling the conditions for innovation and original thinking. How unlikely that we are here talking about building institutions based on deep and meaning learning experiences. How unlikely that we get this opportunity to nurture the intellectual curiosities while outside a burning forest fire is kept at bay.

I mention these unlikelihoods to you for a reason. And it is that we, I, value what RKU is doing for its students, for its faculties, for the community. This event may just be one conference in many more such conferences around the world. But for us, it matters. Your presence matters. In a way all these “unlikelihoods” represent interdisciplinary, deeply human problems. Now, more than ever, we need to bridge the gulf between the two cultures of the Sciences and the Humanities. What CP Snow told us 60 years ago remains true today, perhaps more so. In my personal journey from the hard sciences to social sciences I have realised that if we are going to solve the world’s most intractable problems we need to be more humane in our scientific pursuits. Isn’t that what this conference is about? Isn’t that what engineering is about?

Summer is a stressful time for students. Not only is the heat taking its toll, but the stress of exam results (especially 10th and 12th results) is too much to handle at times. Add to that the pressure of finding the right college for higher education. Naturally students and their parents are flooded with correct and many times false marketing campaigns.  Before you get pushed and pulled in all directions read this article to make yourself aware about the legal status of different types of higher education institutions in India.

Indian higher education sector is a complex and multilayered sector. It can be hard for students and parents to understand different types of institutes and make a right choice. Student and parents have to make institute selection based on multiple factors like location, courses offered, fees, placements, co-curricular activities, etc. in addition to the type of institute as well. In this article we will help you in understanding the different types of institutes and their differences.

There are primarily 6 types of universities and institutes in India. We will look at each type one by one and list their features and some examples. Let’s begin:

1. Private Universities: Private universities are funded and managed by private organizations. Private Universities are established by State government by an act in the Legislative Assembly. They are recognized by UGC and are empowered to award degrees, conduct examinations and design their own curriculum. There are 214 private universities in India and 20 in Gujarat. You may have heard of Nirma University, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of ICT (DAIICT), Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU), RK University (RKU) etc. All these exemplary universities are private universities of Gujarat.

2. Central Universities: Central universities are government run universities created by an act of the Parliament by the central government. You may have heard of some central universities such as Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Banaras Hindu University (BHU), etc. In Gujarat there is one Central university named Central University of Gujarat.

3. State Universities: Just like Central Universities, State universities are also directly run by the government but in this case, State Government establishes and runs the State University. This is the most common type of university that you will have encountered. Saurashtra University, MS University, Gujarat Technological University, Gujarat University, etc. are all state universities. These universities generally give affiliation to smaller institutes. All private colleges and institutes of the state are generally affiliated to one of the state universities like GTU or Saurashtra University. There are more than 35000 self-financed and government colleges in India that are affiliated to State Universities. 

4. Deemed Universities: Deemed universities are private institutions that are empowered to grant degrees by UGC. But deemed universities are not established by the state government in the legislative assembly. There are about 130 deemed universities in India and 2 in Gujarat.

5. Autonomous Institutes: These institutes are allowed to design curriculum and take examinations but cannot award degrees. The degree is awarded but a state university. There are about 374 autonomous institutes in India.

6. Affiliated Colleges: In Gujarat there are more than 1800 colleges including engineering colleges, MBA colleges, pharmacy colleges, arts and science colleges, etc. that are affiliated to one of the state universities, generally based on their location. These affiliated colleges cannot grant degrees or take examinations. These colleges cannot design and update curriculum. The affiliating university awards, degree, takes exams and develops curriculum.

As you can see, there are many different types of universities in India. But only one type of college. All colleges are affiliated to some university and are dependent upon the affiliating university to prescribe syllabus, take exams and award degrees. An easy way to understand this is to compare colleges to tuition class. A tuition class is dependent upon the student’s school for syllabus and exams. Tuition class cannot teach anything other than what the student’s school will ask in exam. Neither can a tuition class give results.

In this era of extreme innovation and competition, only private universities who can design and update syllabus will benefit the students. The industry will not wait for colleges who have old syllabus and old methods of teaching and examinations.

Management Education - Why it matters

by Prof. Sandip Dhakecha, Dy. Director, SOM RKU

It is always a topic of debate that management education really matters? The biggest argument we come across most of the time is the business tycoons like Dhirubhai Ambani, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs are not MBAs. True, but these are gifted people. If you are as creative as Steve, then probably, management education is not for you. If you are not, then you have to think seriously about this career option considering the fact that management graduates are the most sought after people across the globe. As a student, one need not to be drifted away with such extreme examples which are actually exceptions, they cannot be generalized. Moreover, in most of such cases, the time in which they have created the big business empires matters the most. I mean, if any of these business tycoons need to create the same scale in current time without professional skills or degrees like MBA, will they be able to do it? That’s a big question.

Unlike technical degrees, BBA and MBA are professional degrees which mostly focus on student’s professional / personal skills development. The demand for such skills is universal and mostly, it does not get affected by cyclical fluctuations of the corporate. People in general think that management education is losing its ground because most of the media reports present an exaggerated gloomy picture of management education which conveys only a half truth. In reality, good management professionals are always in demand. The actual reason behind the fall of popularity of management courses is that the management institutions have mushroomed like anything in last five years. The inefficiencies of such institutes are the real culprit. On the contrary, some good institutes like School of Management, RK University has managed to offer 100% placements even in such time of turbulence.

So who should join management program? Here are some straight forward reasons to pursue BBA or MBA.

If you are looking for a good employment with comparatively good salary with respectable position in the corporate, BBA / MBA is the program for you.

If your family is already in business and you are planning to join the same, you got a big reason to join BBA / MBA because these will be the only courses which directly help you in running or expanding your family business.

If you do not want to be an employee, instead, you want to start something your own, for budding entrepreneurs, BBA / MBA is just the right choice because it has all the necessary learnings which requires to start and run a business successfully.

If you are a girl with not much career orientation, in that case, anyways, you will end up managing your family as a house maker. The management principles are so universal that it equally applies to all walks of life, be it people management, relationship management, managing limited resources just like in the case of business.

English language proficiency has become a critical issue for success in academic and professional life. All professional higher education programs such as engineering, management, pharmacy, physiotherapy, medicine, etc. are taught in English across India. Moreover, most resources that students need to use for succeeding in academics are available in English. Whether it is online resources or websites, reference books or textbooks, journals or publications, all good resources are in English. Most recruiters, if not all, place very high importance on the communication skills of students. It would not be an exaggeration to say that communication skills are equal in importance, perhaps even more important, than technical skills for success in placements.

It is a generally accepted fact that students in most higher education institutes in Gujarat need exceptional amount of support and scaffolding in language development to be at par with industry standards. Learning English language has been a major issue for the students who have received their school education in vernacular medium. Students coming from English medium schools have also been found to lack functional English capabilities. Communication skills courses embedded within the professional curriculums have done little to change this situation. Orthodox approaches and regulatory constraints have rendered most English language courses little more than technical compliance without significant functional improvements.

A scientifically validated fact is that teaching English to non-native learners (learners whose native language is not English) requires a fundamentally different approach compared to standard language teaching techniques. Moreover, these non-native learners in higher education institutions are adult students which itself requires different approach in teaching compared to educating young kids. At RKU, we are launching a new initiative to rethink long adopted approaches in teaching and learning English. We are re-thinking the strategies of teaching and learning English as a second language in the light of researches on non-native language learning (NNL) and Teaching English to the Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). We are trying work out an actionable and outcome based solution to this problem. A new university level entity, called Centre for English as a Second Language (CESL) is being launched at RKU. The task force nominated in helping create this centre has been hard at work in redefining English education at RKU.

The first task undertaken at CESL is the complete overhaul of English language instruction at RKU. We are rebuilding English courses from the ground up. Some of the key elements of the new approach are illustrated below:

Rationalizing and consolidating

We studied the current language offerings across all schools of RKU. There were some key findings that were alarming and needed immediate action. Engineering, management, physiotherapy and all other schools had some or the other language offering under different names and different curriculums. These courses were by and large legacy courses. There was an immediate need to rationalize and consolidate varied language and communications courses into a simple and universal course across the university. Thus was born a new course called ESL Level 1. This new course will be a universal course offered as a primary language course across all schools of the university.

Entry and Exit Diagnostic Tests

We have been pushing for introducing formative assessments across all programs at RKU. Formative assessments help us in adapting the instructional approach based on the assessment results rather than simply being a memory rest at the end of the term. For ESL Level 1 we are introducing a formative test called the English Language Diagnostic Test (ELDT).  ELDT is modeled on international language tests such as TOEFL and IELTS. ELDT, which will be taken before the start of the course, will help us in identifying existing level of students prior to any instructional intervention. A similar exit assessment will be carried out at the end of the course. Both these tests are based on functional parameters of language such as listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW).

Design and Development of Curriculum

To design a curriculum that can meet the needs of regional students is a complicated task. Our top priority was to make ESL Level 1 highly engaging for students. Language courses are generally seen as boring and a distraction from the core domain focus of engineering or management or whichever professional program the students are taking. ESL Level 1 aims to elevate the status of language courses to something that students look forward to attending everyday. Another important consideration for us was to make the ESL Level 1 highly context specific to a student’s life. Rather than focusing on grammar and syntax as a framework for organizing the curriculum, we took real life context and applications as a base for design of curriculum.  Our curriculum revolves around 4 functional areas: Listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW). Even within LSRW, we design units to be proportionate to industry requirements and personal needs. Although all 4 areas are interconnected, ESL Level 1 places more importance on listening and speaking compared to reading and writing. Going forward ESL Level 2 might have different focus areas.

Personalized Instruction

Based on the results of ELDT, we classify students into different levels. Although the course content for each student remains the same, we plan to support students at different levels through enrichment activities suited to their personal needs. For instance, weaker students may get additional bridge activities or out of class activities. They may also have additional contact hours with the faculties. At the same time stronger students may have additional activities or access to resources suitable to their needs.

Establishment of Centre for ESL (CESL)

CESL is being floated as a university level entity charged to development and dissemination of English language. As the first activity, CESL has designed and developed ESL Level 1 course that will bring uniform quality across the university. Going forward, CESL will provide training and development programs for faculties and students, publish newsletters and articles and imparting professional English language trainings apart from regular courses. CESL will extend these opportunities to the wider community of students and professionals who aspire to develop their English language skills.

Centre for English as a Second Language (CESL) is established under Project Northstar.

CESL Task Force:

Anjana Prajapati

Kimpal Patel

Chintan Rajani

Rajnikanth Aluvalu

Nirav Mandavia

Sandip Dhakecha