Vice-Chancellor of the University of Kashmir Prof Talat Ahmad on Saturday chaired the first Advisory Board Meeting (ABM) of the varsity’s prestigious Centre for Career Planning and Counselling (CCPC).
The ABM was, among others, attended by Dean Academic Affairs Prof Akbar Masood, Registrar Dr Nisar Ahmed Mir, Dean College Development Council Prof Mohi-ud-Din Sangmi, Director HRDC Prof Shabir A Bhat, Dean School of Business Studies Prof Mufeed Ahmed, Dean Engineering Prof Muzaffar Ali Andrabi and expert members representing the industry and civil services. Former Director, JMI, New Delhi, M F Farooqui and Monimoy Dasgupta, Associate Vice-President (CSR), TCS, Kolkata, also attended it through online mode.
The Advisory Board accepted the proposal of introducing new training programmes like the International English Language Testing System [IELTS] and Test of English as a Foreign Language [TOEFL] for students desirous to study in the UK and US. The Advisory Board stressed that the University should strive for an examination centre for the IELTS and TOEFL and the CCPC should approach the British Council in this regard.
Director CCPC Prof Mohammad Shafi presented a detailed status report of the Centre’s activities and achievements.
The Advisory Board also discussed threadbare how mapping of career progression of the university students could be achieved.
Prof Talat said such an exercise “would be of immense help to observe the progression of students, individually, and such a database can be used by other important offices of the university, particularly the Directorate of Internal Quality Assurance (DIQA). It will also help the CCPC to devise placement modules for students who are not well-placed.”
Prof Shafi suggested such a mapping could be achieved once the students will be required to fill up the “Present Status Form” at the time of applying for their degree certificates.
Hailing the efforts of the CCPC in constituting the Advisory Board, KU Registrar Dr Nisar A Mir said the Advisory Board Meeting should be conducted twice-a-year, instead of once-a-year as proposed, because “the deliberations therein could be extremely fruitful and beneficial for the progress of the Centre”.
Prof Shafi also proposed to nominate a Career Counselor for each department/institution, preferably the one who is an Academic Counselor as well.
He assured the Board members that residential coaching for civil services will be undertaken once the COVID-19 restrictions are over. He, however, conveyed that the Centre is presently organising online coaching for the IAS aspirants.
Dr Bilal A Pandow and Hina Kazmi, Consultants at CCPC, moderated the proceedings of the meeting.