HYDERABAD: It has been over four decades and it is still going strong. Government Degree College for Women at Begumpet in Hyderabad has earned itself a place in the hearts and minds of students of the city, especially those who hail from economically weak classes. The college, established in 1971 in a spacious and serene centrally located campus in the heart of the city, has empowered women through knowledge. The institution has been conferred with autonomous status by the University Grants Commission and is affiliated to Osmania University. In 2011-12, the college was re-accredited with B grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).
Speaking about the uniqueness of the institution, Principal K Padmavathi says the driving force for them has been the concept of ‘learning is the best ornament’. “Our students are mostly first generation learners. Being a women’s educational institution, we are focused on generating employment and instilling confidence in our students,” she says.
According to her, the college stands out from others in terms of conduct of meaningful result-oriented workshops. “We have Memorandums of Understanding with the industry. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has adopted 100 of our students for Young Indians YUVA leadership training programme. Corporates have come forward to start a sewing unit. Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya has granted us a skill development centre. We are doing the best of what we can,” she says.
Courses
The college offers both undergraduate and postgraduate courses and has 1,700 students on rolls. There are about 75 experienced teaching faculty. Many of the teachers are recipients of the State government’s Best Teacher Award. In UG, courses are offered in BA (Economics, Political Science, Public Administration) in Telugu medium, BCom regular in Telugu and English mediums, BSc (Botany, Zoology, Chemistry) and another BSc (Botany, Zoology, Chemistry) vocational course in Telugu medium. BCom courses are available along with streams of Tax procedure, Sales Promotion and Advertising and also in Computer Applications. Other courses are BSc (Maths, Chemistry, Industrial Chemistry), BSc (Botany, Chemistry, Microbiology), BSc (Zoology, Chemistry, Biotechnology), BA (Journalism, Political Science and Communicative English), and BA (Economics, Public Administration, Computer Applications). PG courses on the anvil are MA English, MSc Chemistry, MSc Mathematics, and MSc Applied Statistics.
Infrastructure
Apart from spacious classrooms and laboratories, the college also houses a grand library comprising over 24,000 titles and a reading room, a computer centre, health centre, gymnasium and audio visual laboratory.
Activities on campus
To enable every student to attain their maximum potential, there are several active student clubs and groups, some of which are literary and cultural groups, consumer club, career guidance cell, students’ redressal cell, women empowerment cell, red-cross centre, red ribbon club and cell for prevention of gender harassment.
“Literary competitions, debates, creative writing competitions, seminars, sports and athletics are held frequently. There are four units of National Service Scheme (NSS) and there is also a National Cadet Corps (NCC) unit. One of our students received the Prime Minister’s medal for being the best NSS volunteer last year,” explains G Nirmala, Vice-Principal and Professor of Commerce.
The NCC unit of the college with a cadet strength of 100 and is attached to seven Andhra Girls Battalion of Hyderabad group. The Kabaddi team of the college won second place in the inter collegiate tournaments conducted by Osmania University recently.
Reach Out is a gesture by the teaching staff of the college through which financial assistance is given to needy students to pursue their education. This academic year Reach Out helped to pay the tuition fee of 10 needy students who did not receive any scholarship.
The Jawahar Knowledge Centre (JKC), a prestigious scheme of the State government, provides special training in computers, communication skills, analytical skills and soft skills. Placement drives are arranged every year with a commendable success rate. Dhatri Infrastructures, a corporate firm, has recently come forward promising to donate several sewing machines to help the girls with a useful vocation.
Placements
As many as 288 students underwent JKC training out of which 103 students were placed in various companies like Corpone, Easy labs, Real Shoppe, Transdyne, Genpact, Xavier’s Institution For Excellence, Elico, ADP, SBI Credit card recruitment and Meru cabs in the placement drives held during 2014-2015.
“We love our college because we have all the freedom as well as support from faculty to choose our career. The green campus is just a value addition to that,” says Sai Amulya, a second-year BSc student.
— rahul.v@newindianexpress.com