One of the millennium development goals is to strengthen universities to contribute to the making of a knowledge society that is responsive to the needs of the sustainable socio-economic development of the nation. Universities of late have been in search of the ingredients necessary for giving a thrust to innovation that creates new ideas and converts them into economically useful and viable products and concepts. In a key sector like University – Industry research collaboration, there is a lot more we can do to acquire adequate hold on cutting edge technologies that help convert knowledge into something tangible for the economy. The engendering of the green shoots of a competitive innovative culture is one important challenge before higher education in the context of globalization, a challenge which Vikrama Simhapuri University is aware that a new university has to be face to face with.
Commensurate with the quantum leap in higher education, the pursuit of quality needs to be bestowed attention upon. The quest for quality is a quest in eternity and hence today the staff and students should be engaged in an activity of ceaseless industry for which there is no alternative.
The Cooperative Institutional Research Programme Report reached at Orlando at the ACPA conference in April 2007 points in the direction of certain major trends anticipated and initiated by the AP State Council of Higher Education when it championed the cause of the five-year integrated programme involving modularization of course structures. The CIRP Report states that an explicit value that needs to be built into academic structures is that college / university should “lead to fulfilled life.” The five-year integrated course, as has rightly been envisioned, does take due care of value and utility of the Humanities and Social Sciences component, thus balancing the quest for employable skills and the immutable search for values.
Yet another feature of higher educational reform is competency promotion. Again, thanks to the proactive measures implemented by the AP State Council of Higher Education, under the dynamic leadership of Prof. K.C. Reddy, the train the trainer programme is a unique step in the direction of accelerating the academic orientation and growth of the younger teacher. An intensive training programme in the newer curricular innovations, teaching methodologies, and theoretical aspects impinging upon curricular reforms, part of the quest for quality enhancement, are proposed to be built into the academic structure and budgetary provisions of a university.
Even in the West, employability of graduates is an issue of concern that was awarded 67 per cent rating in 2007. In the context of globalization, giving an employability orientation to courses of study is a high priority item. In our attempts to meet this challenge, it is necessary for us, as an academic community, to study social, market and policy issues involved in the needed transition.
The newly added affiliated colleges from Sri Potti Sreeramulu Nellore district are part of this process of empowerment. A University represents “a growing and a becoming”. Towards the shaping of that destiny, let us all, including the academic community from the collegiate system, move collectively in common pursuit.
"The University looks up to His Excellency the Governor & Chancellor of the University, the Hon'ble Chief Minister, and the Hon'ble Minister for Higher Education to guide its future in tune with the great national vision and mission.
-Prof. C.R. Visweswara Rao,
Vice-Chancellor,
Vikrama Simhapuri University.