St Xavier’s College, Calcutta, is consulting corporates to develop its syllabi to enhance students’ employability, principal Father Dominic Savio said in his convocation address on Thursday.
“In line with current trends in higher education, St Xavier’s is focused on developing collaboration with industry for syllabus development, research and internship to enhance the employability of students. The department of data science is leading the way by creating a template for such collaborations with companies such as Ernst and Young, Accenture and LTIMindtree. We are completing the appointment of professors of practice in all departments to enhance networking with industry and to avail of their professional advice and expertise,” the principal said.
St Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata, held its 18th convocation on Thursday.
Father Savio said: “We have successfully introduced a course in hospitality management in collaboration with Chowman, a leading company in the hospitality industry. A course in food, science and nutrition will be introduced in the next session with professionals being brought in to take classes... We hope to extend this interaction with industry to more departments in the coming years.”
M. Jagadesh Kumar, the chairman of the UGC, attended the convocation as the chief guest. Among others present was Santa Datta, the interim vice-chancellor of Calcutta University.
Father Savio told The Telegraph: “We are in touch with companies to develop our syllabi to enhance the students’ employability. If we don’t understand industry trends, and if those trends are not reflected in our syllabus, students will not be employable or competitive.”
The principal said that they were focusing on artificial intelligence in their curriculum.
“Departments have been urged to develop their expertise in digital technology and create AI modules suitable to their departments to train themselves and students in the best use of AI for teaching and research. A second workshop on AI in the future of education will be conducted for teachers in February. We have launched a new learning management system that encourages teachers to use digital technology for teaching, evaluation and personalised teaching for both weak and advanced learners,” the principal said in the address.
St Xavier’s College plans to launch an undergraduate programme in AI shortly, Dominic Savio told this newspaper.
Father Dominic Savio stressed making students “more informed and responsible to social and environmental issues”.
The Jesuit college has introduced a multidisciplinary course in Wetlands Management which, it said, is the only such course in India.
The college hopes to introduce “advanced environment courses”.
“Looking at new areas of employability we have introduced a one-semester course in Sports Management which we hope to expand into a full-fledged minor course,” Father Savio said.
As many as 2,754 undergraduate, postgraduate, BEd and PhD students received their degrees on Thursday.