“Life is a series of challenges and we can find opportunities in the midst of challenges. We went online in March when the nationwide lockdown was announced by the prime minister. Parents and students have welcomed and appreciated the proactive response of our university and the educational campus. Students are online every day for their respective classes and there is overall a positive atmosphere among the parents and students.” – Sanjay D Ghodawat, founder president of Sanjay Ghodawat University. 

Since the nationwide lockdown was announced, Sanjay Ghodawat University in Kolhapur, Maharashtra has taken a proactive approach to online teaching. To ensure that students’ learning process is not hampered, it immediately switched to online learning in March. Few salient features of their online learning include:

Learning App: Ghodawat Softech has developed a learning app called SG Learning App which the science students of classes 11 and 12 have been using even before the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. Students can access visual aids, videos, teaching through experts, games, quiz and test series on the app on their computers or mobile phones.

Live webinars: The students are given time table online and teachers conduct lectures every day using apps such as Jio Learning, Google Meet, Cisco Webex and Zoom. The university has provided online infrastructure to its teaching staff to work from home or campus and conduct their daily sessions. With this, at the Sanjay Ghodawat Educational Campus, the university, junior college, IIT & medical academy, international school, the polytechnic departments have all commenced online teaching for the students.     

Online events: Apart from curricular activities, the university has also been organising online events for students to boost their morale. Their international school and the university recently organised Guru Poornima programme online. Programme like investiture ceremony are also being conducted online. The university is also organising lectures by experts from the industry and fields of education and social work. They had experts such as Dr. Prakash Amte, social worker and the Indian diplomat Dnyaneshwar Mule who was appointed as the member of National Human Rights Commission in 2019, to conduct webinars for the students.

Students voices

“The show must go on’ that is the mantra at the School of Commerce & Management of the Sanjay Ghodawat University. Right from the month of April, we students have had the privilege to continue our studies uninterruptedly due to the online sessions conducted by our teachers. We also had the privilege to be exposed to online webinars and expert lectures from business and industry experts and celebrities. We are happy with the initiative that our university has taken to continue our education online.” – Angha Raikar, CSE, B.Tech.

“I am happy that the university has taken initiative to go online and complete our syllabus. The teachers are very proactive in engaging us online and we are continuing to learn from the safety and luxury of our homes.” – Omkar Chitrakar, 3rd Year Aeronautical Engineering. 

“We were worried that our syllabus will be affected when the lockdown was announced. But I was actually surprised and overwhelmed the way our university acted professionally and decided to go online immediately to continue our education.  The university, with its proactive approach, has conveyed to us that we need to keep moving ahead and I would like to thank the university for it.” – Yash Mirajkar, MBA 2nd Year School of Commerce & Mgmt, SGU.

Also read: 50 Leaders who can revive Indian education – Sanjay Ghodawat