E-Paper
Principal of Pune’s St Mira’s on why fun is essential part of learning
Gidwani is a recipient of International Women Achievers Award, Vidya Ratna Award, Best Citizen of India Award, Kukiwon Award given to her by the Govt of Korea, to name a few
Gulshan H Gidwani, 63, is the principal of St Mira’s College. She is a recipient of International Women Achievers Award, Vidya Ratna Award, Best Citizen of India Award, Kukiwon Award given to her by the Govt of Korea, to name a few. She opens up about her plans for the institute.
What initiatives have been taken to enhance students skills?
As we are an autonomous college, the curriculum is revamped every five years to maintain contemporaries, innovativeness, relevance, academic rigour and employability. Inclusion of societal issues like gender sensitivity, human rights, and dualistic societies, environment, health, safety and conservation is included in the curriculum. Internships have been made an integral part of many courses one of which is accountancy to enhance employability. The quality of teaching-learning has been enhanced by an eclectic mix of strong theory-building along with hands-on experience in the field. In most of the disciplines, training workshops, guest lectures, group discussions, role-plays, quizzes, business plans and industry visits are used to facilitate the much-needed link between industry and academia.
What are the steps taken for students’ upgradation?
We conduct several student enrichment activities to name a few intra-department performances of various plays like ‘The Boor’, ‘An Interview with Murugesh Srikumar’, staging famous plays like The Penelopiad, Pygmalion not just to enhance understanding of the text, but to encourage creativity and to build confidence among the students. As Shakespeare says, ‘All the world’s a stage...’ and the sooner our girls learn to win people’s hearts with powerful performances the better. Songs, singing, karaoke and lip-sync performances are central to class activities. For learning to be effective it must be fun and when work is fun it is more productive.
What are your plans for the future?
Our future plans are to be recognized on an all India basis as an Institute of Excellence in the field of Women’s Education.
