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 The Science departments are gearing up to employ Research Based Pedagogical
Tools (RGPT) in practicals and Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL)
in theory.

*Research
 The curriculum demands that ‗Higher education and research go hand-in-hand‘.
This motivates teachers to be involved in research. This is evidenced by the fact that
as many as 40 UGC, DST, CSIR and other government sponsored research projects
have been carried out during the past four years.
 Postgraduate programs have a mandatory research requirement in terms of
dissertation and/or project work. Some of these courses have a paper on Research
Methodology as part of the curriculum.
 The College has mandated a term paper, which is based on independent research by
the student, as an essential course requirement. Many of the research findings of the
students based on the term papers have been presented in conferences and a few have
been published in journals of repute.
 The Departments of Environmental Science and English have made a research-
based dissertation mandatory in the undergraduate course.
 As the curriculum emphasizes multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, students
are encouraged in interdisciplinary research through Josephite Research Forum,
where teachers and students meet once in a month to discuss each other‘s research.

1.1.5. How does the College ensure that the curriculum developed addresses the
needs of the society and have relevance to the regional/national developmental
needs?

The processes of feedback identified above constitute one key aspect of this crucial
task of measuring relevance to local needs.
 The curriculum designed has always been in tune with the vision and mission of
the College and hence has always kept the focus on creating learning experiences
which are relevant to the local needs and to the larger goals of development.
 Issues of local, regional and national importance like environment, economic and
social issues like informal economy, gender, urban sociology, issues of governance,
information technology and science are included in the curriculum.
 At the same time, student activities such as participating in departmental
association activities have also helped students to be in touch with social realities. The
freedom to design assessment processes translates into innovative ways of engaging
with local communities for students of courses such as Social Work, Environmental
Science, Journalism, Sociology, Economics and History.
 The College also mandates a compulsory outreach program in addition to these
engagements through its newly formed Joseph‘s Outreach Centre which ensures that
students are exposed to regional realities and development issues in a constructive
way. The outreach takes the form of engaging with a rural community and also of
dealing with urban issues.
 The NSS, NCC, Social Work and Centre for Social Concern also run initiatives
which go a long way in promoting such an engagement.

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