The Higher Education Review

First-rate higher education has been denied to many tribal and village communities in Assam even before Independence. To put an end to this injustice Tihu College, one of the premier institutions of higher education in Assam, was established in 1963 with a view to make higher education accessible to the poor village community in the western part of Nalbari district of Assam. Since its inception, the institute has come a long way and with more than five decades of eventful history behind it catering to the needs of the students opting for higher education. From the start, the founders of the institute had a clear mission and vision for Tihu College and that was to bring the benefit of higher education to the semi-urban and rural masses, especially to the poorer section of the society, with a more caring and supportive understanding of the socio-economic milieu, which will equip them to meet the challenges of the changing times in a much more organized and scientific way.

Operating with the motto of 'March Ahead for Excellence', Tihu College under the guidance of Founder and first Principal Sjt. Sailendra Prasad Medhi has played an integral part in the development of the less privileged community of the state and has now grown to become one of the premier institutions operating in the hinterlands that have rich intellectual heritage and academic ethos. Providing class-leading education at an affordable price Tihu College has become one of the go-to destinations for many higher education aspirants in the country.

Committed to Create a Difference
The NAAC accredited institute has developed their curriculum in such a way that after completing the academic programs their students will contribute effectively to nation-building through leadership, teaching and self-conscious citizenship and identify and utilize locally available natural resources for their development. With the full-fledged streams of Arts, Science and Commerce, and Major/Honour Courses in almost

all teaching departments, the college is committed to the cause of disseminating higher education among the semi-urban and rural folk. Students can opt for career-oriented and skill-based courses like PGDCA, BCA and Diploma in Food Processing that eliminates the much-feared possibility of unemployment. Tihu College also offers various other B.A and B.Sc courses and B.com and BCA courses at the undergraduate level and MA programmes in Education and History in the postgraduate segment.

"Tihu College has one of the best teaching-learning processes for the rural-based students enabling them to move ahead with the time"

Although Tihu College is located in a semi-urban area, most of the students come from rural background and their main source of income being agriculture. As many students cannot collect their admission fee, the college gives free admission and financial assistance to poor but meritorious students and students belonging to the BPL category and the students hailing from SC/ST and OBC are shortlisted during the time of admission. The office staff normally offers their helping hand in the process of filling up the application forms and in the disbursement of money as and when the scholarship is sanctioned. In the present complex scenario, the College has been trying to motivate students to take up self-dependant avocations in consonance with the availability of indigenous resources in traditional artistry, traditional cottage industry, animal husbandry, and cultivation which will lead to both income and employment generation.

Operating with a Holistic Approach
Tihu College offers the best of both infrastructural amenities and faculty expertise for their students. "The college has free Wi-Fi and the students can use it during their time at the campus and we have fully furnished and modernized classrooms and libraries resulting in improved effectiveness of our teaching. We have also various labs and workshops in the institute to impart practical knowledge to our students and we constantly update our labs and classrooms to accommodate the latest trends happening in the educational strata and we also have a Biotech Hub laboratory providing research scope for the interested students. The college

has an auditorium for conducting various cultural programmes, conferences, seminars, workshops and other events. The auditorium has full acoustic facilities. A new Conference Hall with all modern amenities has been built for organizing seminars and workshops. A renovated playground, a badminton court, tennis court, volleyball court, basketball court, etc have been provided to develop our students' extracurricular capabilities", says, Dr. Kishore Kumar Talukdar, Principal, Tihu College.

Tihu College has one of the best teaching-learning processes for the rural-based students enabling them to move ahead with the time and the institute has a strong faculty presence in the campus with good number of faculty members having obtained Ph. D. and M. Phil. Degrees and the others actively involved in various research works. The teaching staff of the college uses various innovative teaching methods such as interactive learning, collaborative learning, and independent learning to improve the quality of their teaching.

By decentralizing various activities the top management of the college involves both the teaching and non-teaching staff in different institutional processes to improve their skills and abilities. The Institute also has various internal assessment cells and a unique facility called 'SWAYAM' that has been created keeping in view of the horizontal and vertical upliftment of the knowledge standards of their students. The college has strong industrial collaboration with North-East Mega Food Park and a MoU has been signed between the college authority and North-East Mega Food Park so that students from Botany, Zoology and Diploma in Food Processing can facilitate internship in the Park en route to their employment in the relevant sectors. With the educational sector changing rapidly, Tihu College is planning to evolve with the changing trends without compromising on their ideology and this approach of the institute has been showing results with the student enrollment increasing every year.

Prof. Kishore Kumar Talukdar, Principal
A true visionary in the field, Dr. Kishore is an M.Sc., B.Ed., M.Phil., and Ph.D. holder. With his leadership and vision, Tihu College is planning to become a one-of-a-kind institute in the Indian higher education scenario in the present times.