We are at the beginning of a new academic year, amid a slowly subsiding pandemic, and it’s that time of the year when we will bid farewell to one batch of students and welcome a batch. Adding a new community of youngsters with new energy, new ideas, and new passion is a ray of silver lining at these dark hours.
At the same time last year, there was fear, lack of clarity, and extreme anxiousness about the pandemic situation. In 12 months, we have all progressed and benchmarked many milestones. We have discovered vaccines, boosted medical infrastructure, quickly implemented the learnings from the first wave, and most important of all, we have persevered. We have all shown resilience like never before.
Positive Challenges
The pandemic has changed us all in many ways but I would like to remember the pandemic as a positive challenge. It nudged us out of our comfort zones and decisions that prolonged indefinitely were to be made overnight. For instance, all our years of digital preparedness was to put to test in one night. For the sake of our student community, we had to transition from offline learning to online learning within a span of three days. And I am happy to observe we emerged successfully.
Student events like welcoming a new batch of students, valedictory programme, and other fests were grand occasions at REVA University. In 2020, however, we had to choose virtual celebrations of all these events. Although we would have liked to welcome our students face-to-face, online welcome became possible only because of our vision to be a technology-driven university.
Pragmatic Outcomes
This year so far has also been a year of beneficial outcomes. India discovered vaccines, and nearly 20 pc of the population has been successfully administered the first dose of the vaccine. About 4 pc of the population has been fully vaccinated, and the drive is on to fully vaccinate the rest of the population.
In our journey, at REVA, we realised that vaccination is the biggest weapon to fight the pandemic and keep the REVA family members safe. We fully vaccinated over 1,000 employees in the months of May-June and extended the vaccination drive to our students’ community. A three-day vaccination drive was held on the REVA University campus to administer vaccines to hundreds of students.
I am thrilled at the fact that REVA is one of the very few Universities to administer free vaccines to its student community.
For educational institutions to perform normally under these situations, it is important that all students are safe and community vaccination is observed efficiently. I am delighted to know that REVA is a forerunner in this direction.
REVA’s vision for future
This academic year has already posed new challenges – students of Class 12 have been directly promoted to under-graduation and private universities are still exploring methods to admit students on a merit basis. Along with this, there is an underlying worry on how to make students strong with fundamental concepts, and ensure they are ready for higher classes.
To solve this problem, REVA has decided to introduce capsule courses to engineering core subjects to ensure that students are well-versed with basic and fundamental concepts. This will not prepare them for professional courses, but also ensure, if and when they are assessed, they fall into the category of students who have adequate knowledge about basic theoretical concepts.
I am confident that a community of students that is safe, protected, well-taught, and provided with a positive learning environment is the beacon of hope for all educators!
