Ways to find out colleges that provide quality education

Quality in education means it is something that helps us in recognizing the inner creative value in a student. Apart from teaching the fundamental learning skills, it encourages the habit of students to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. Education plays a great role in forming character of a person. It lays the foundation stone of a person for his career. School and college are almost same but in the college life, tree of knowledge and wisdom grows, which was once seeded in the days of school. A college has definitely quality if it makes the youth think and make sound judgment. The college is instrumental in giving concrete shape to whatever the students have learnt in their school days. Literally, a school digs up the foundation and raises the structure, while the college gives final touches to the life- building- shapes of students. The college is a place, where students make up their minds to take up decisions about what would become their ultimate goals in their careers. A student might have studied in English or a vernacular medium school  but a good college could lend vital support in giving life-building materials to make the student choose a good career and progress in life.

Quality perspective in college education in India today

Although, due to certain changes in policies in education, now-a-days the mushrooming growth of colleges continues unabated in India. While selling colored prospectus, the colleges promise a number of things to the students, including placement in a good college at the end of the course. But only after taking admission, the students realize that they have been taken for a ride. They come to know that standards of teaching, facilities, and infrastructure of the college are way below the things given in the prospectus of the college. Unfortunately, once the admission is over, it becomes difficult to find a way out of the situation. The students need to exercise utmost caution, while they want to take admission in a college, knowing well that a wrong step would spoil the entire prospects of their lives.According to a report, India produces almost 2.5 million new graduates from its umpteen colleges spread across its length and breadth but the number does not add significantly to the level of intellectualism in the nation. This gives rise to unemployment and rise in crime and anti-social activities.

Let’s know about some of the important things that students need to carefully decide before finding admission in a college

How old is the college and its brand image?

Students generally look for two factors, while they select a college on the basis of available information. The first information is the age of the college since the date of its establishment and second factor is its perceived brand image. Good brand image is the result of the factors given below;

• The college is an old institution in the field of education and it has esteemed alumni with their excellent contribution to various fields of excellence in the society.

• The college is relatively new but it has built up reputation due to large-scale advertising.

• The college is new in the field of education but it is trying to create a brand image by inviting good faculty and through advertisement, although it is not sure what would be its success rate in the future.

Is the faculty good enough?

• Does the college have adequate faculty? It is also important to know how many members from faculties have PhDs in their respective subjects.

•  While seeking admission, the student needs to find out about  the concerned department of his interest and whether it is doing well and its faculty is experienced. It is not possible that even in a reputed college, all the departments have excellent faculties and the students are passing out with flying colors every year.

• When the faculties have completed their doctoral thesis and experienced, it increases the chances of good results among the students.

• The newer colleges in India have adopted the trend of hiring part-time lectures from other professions in the name of visiting faculties. Such hiring of inexperienced professionals does not help in any way in imparting quality education to the students. Students need to abstain from taking admission in such colleges, which do not have its own faculty and gets most of its teaching members only as visiting faculties.

Adequate infrastructure and extra-curricular activities

Is a play ground part of the infrastructure of the college? If it is there, the college could encourage extra-curricular activities in the students. Does the college have an auditorium? If it has, the students could certainly host plays, debates, and other competitions, where they would display their creative abilities. Does the college host fashion shows, seminars, and other such activities and invite distinguished people as speakers? If it does, certainly it is creating extra-curricular activities that simply showcase the institution as a center of intellectual activities and allow its students to participate in them and improve. Such things need to form part of core activities in the course-curricular as those are important means for a students’ for self-improvement.  In the absence of such activities, the college would get very poor rating as a place for education.

The accreditations with the college

Is the college having prestigious accreditations? It is certainly a merit for it if it is having accreditations from National Assessment and Accreditations Council (NAAC) or national board of accreditation (NBA). When the college has the accreditations, it goes beyond doubt that the quality of education is excellent.

Other factors for consideration

• Is the college making updates in its syllabus with the latest trends in education?

• Is the college imparting all types’ courses, important for studies and immediate employment?

• What are the optional courses offered by the college?

• How many pass-outs from the college have become successful in competitive examinations?

• Does the college invite private companies for campus placements?

• Does the college have frequent student’s agitations? If the college is having such disturbances, it is certainly not a place for study.

 Search for information in the web

A thorough search in the web could get important feedbacks about performance of a college. Before seeking admission in a college, the student needs to make a thorough search in Google and go through all the available information about the college. Every piece of information available in the web could act as a decisive factor in taking decision about taking admission in the college. Proper and impartial evaluation about the status of a college could save careers of hundreds of thousands of students. As the popular proverb goes “words travel faster than sound”, the words of an informed student could act like pearls of wisdom for thousands of aspiring undergraduates.