The Higher Education Review

There is a belief that serving the humankind is a great way to express our gratitude to the God. But, only a handful follows this philosophy and among them includes the Sindhi Seva Samiti, a philanthropic organization managed by the Sindhis of Bangalore. Founded in 1956, the Samiti has laid ample emphasis in the field of education since its inception by initiating a number of educational institutions. Sindhi College is one such institution, which was established under the aegis of this Samiti in the year 2002 with a vision to nurture creativity, talent, and performance by providing high-quality education. The college was inaugurated by Sri. L K Advani, the then Deputy Prime Minister of India and Sri S M Krishna, the then Chief Minister of Karnataka.

"What makes Sindhi college unique is its exclusive relationship with the industry giants"

The college was started with a B.Com course initially and later broadened its horizon by launching courses like BBA, BCA, BSc, M.Com, and MFA. "We are introducing a course in humanities with a combination of Journalism, Psychology and English/Kannada in the coming academic session," shares Dr. B.S. Srikanta, Principal, Sindhi College. The college also offers value-added skill development programs like Business English certificate programme from Cambridge University, Advanced MS-Excel, Tally ERP 9.0, French certificate programme and many more. Be it administration or academics, Dr. Srikanta is very-well supported by the two Vice-Principals of the college, Dr Anil Kumar and Prof. Asha, as well as the competent and qualified faculty members of the institute.

What makes Sindhi college unique is its exclusive relationship with the industry giants. The college has signed MoU with Tata Consultancy Services for certificate course in Retail Analytics for students of BBA, MoU with People Care for certificate programme in Business English of Cambridge University, Time Group for placement training for final year students,

Simon Technology for Core Java and Barclays for CSR training of M.Com and MFA students, just to name a few. "Students who successfully complete the TCS training programme are often absorbed by the company with a good package. Not many colleges take such vivid initiatives to secure the career of its students," proudly says Dr. Srikanta.

Enabling each student to fit into the culture of an organization after they are recruited and helping them to go through the grueling experience of the interview process, the college conducts an intensive campus recruitment training programme. Here, the students are groomed in communication skills to presentation skills and group discussions to personal development. Given which, top companies like Amazon, JP Morgan, Capgemini, IBM, Infosys and Bajaj Capitals recruits the students of Sindhi College, recognizing their potentialities and confidence to achieve big.

Boosting the Skills

The management of the college strives hard to fulfill the mission behind its foundation by imparting education at an affordable cost to the students. The Sindhi College is a self-financing co-education college, which is affiliated to the Bangalore Central University and duly accredited by NAAC. "To address the aim of offering affordable education, we offer certain scholarships to our students. The management awarded scholarships to an extent of Rs. 53 lakhs to the deserving students during the year 2016-17," pinpoints Dr. Srikanta. The college provides scholarships to meritorious students, sports achievers, children of defense personnel, students belonging to economically weaker sections and so on.

Located in the Hebbal area of Bangalore city, the Sindhi college campus is endowed with state-of-the-art infrastructure rendering a suitable academic ambience conducive to nurture creativity and innovative instincts of the students. "Research helps in intensifying innovation and gives birth to new knowledge. This led us to formally set up a research cell in the campus," opines Dr. Srikanta. The Research Advisory Committee of the college comprises of distinguished academicians and researchers who guide the research activities.

The college management commendably arranges funds for major and minor research projects of the students and faculty

members. Presently, 17 research projects by the faculty members and 10 research projects by the students are ongoing in the campus. This research-driven attitude of the faculty members allows them to acquire latest technological skills resulting in embellishing the teaching-learning process.

The students are also asked to equally pay heed to the extra-curricular activities in parallel with curricular activities. "Our flagship programme which attracts nearly 1500 participants from about 150-200 colleges across the city of Bangalore is Cresindo, a cultural extravaganza," pinpoints Dr. Srikanta. The students notably participate in national and international level competitions and win several prizes in different categories. Dr. Srikanta adds, "Our students are our real asset. Some of our students of BCA have developed android apps like "Sindhi Digi Notes" and "BU Syllabus" which are available on Google play store."

These extra-curricular activities coupled with industry visits and internship programme assist the students of the college to evolve as competent leaders of the 21st century. In recognition of social services rendered by Sindhi Seva Samiti the President Mr. Deepak R Narang has been conferred with "Sindhi Seva Ratna" award by Sindhi Federation of South India and felicitating the efforts of Dr. Srikanta as a Principal, Exide Life Insurance awarded him the title of "Seva Ratna". Today, acknowledged as one of the premier institutions not only in Bangalore but also in the other states of India, Sindhi college is all set to strengthen the innovation and incubation center, take up industry-sponsored research projects and assemble a Digital campus in the next academic year.