Pure English Medium College
Our college is affiliated to Shivaji University as an English Medium college and we have religiously preserved this character. I am proud to mention that ours is the only purely English medium College in the jurisdiction of Shivaji University. Members of the staff teach only in English and choose to tell the meaning of difficult words in simple English rather than in Marathi. The students are instructed not to speak in Marathi and their attempt at it attracts penalty. The members of the staff too speak with one another in English. Even in the office one would be taken aback to hear the conversation in English. In short, it may be said without any exaggeration that our College is an English speaking island in Marathi ocean.
Attendance
Member of the staff keep the attendance record for every lecture and a consolidation record is made by the concerned teacher for each class every day. Absence for one lecture is treated as absence for whole day. If the student fails to tender a plausible reason for being absent the next day, he or she is fined Rs. 10/-. All students are instructed to apply for leave of absence or to submit a leave note after his/her coming to the college. This has consistently improved desired effect on the overall discipline resulting in the absence from the class without the permission of the Principle or his knowledge leads to the removal of student from the college.
Discipline
The college is committed to maintain discipline religiously within the premises. No one allowed entering the College premises without a valid identity card. Smoking, drinking, and drugging in the college premises is ruthlessly banned. Loitering in corridors during the lecturing hours is penalized. No disturbance of any kind is permitted in the premises. Spitting on the floor, corners, and staircases, throwing waste papers in the compound as well as disfiguring of the college walls and similar objectionable activities are strictly prohibited. During their off lectures students are either allowed to go out of the college premises or to vacant rooms made available them for reading, writing and studying. They are instructed not to mishandle the college property including furniture, pictures, electrical gadgets etc.
Vocabulary Building and Grammatical Exercise
Through a purely English medium college, a sizeable number of students from Marathi medium schools are attached to join it. Care is taken to see that these students who come to this college out of love for English or for practical reasons should in no way feel inferior to the students from English medium schools and should not leave the college in a huff. All students of every class are informed in June to maintain a separate notebook for twenty five English words. The practice of one regular or irregular verb to be used in three tenses, four prepositions, one voice, four phrases and four idioms.All students from every single class are asked one word atleast from their notebook. Abasaheb was assisted in this process by two colleagues, the director of physical education and a lecturer engaging the class : ten students were asked tenses and four students were asked to state four prepositions at random; this exercise took about six to eight minutes; barring checking up of English words: one verb regular or irregular, four prepositions, four idioms were given a day before; this exercise went on round the academic year daily; this increased their vocabulary and improved their English; after mastering the tenses and phrases he would shift to voices, then idioms and lastly to phrases. This took about three years. Students of B.A. and B.Com. were and are taught how questions can be formed in three tenses. Failure to do this on the part of students invites Penalty. This practice is religiously followed even today. It is observed that Marathi medium students make rapid progress in their English. Students of T.Y.B.A. and B.Com are taught how to apply for a job and how to prepare their bio-data as well.
Communication Skill
By and large students write English well but they are poor in their communication skill. Hence an attempt is made to improve it, specially of senior students. After the regular lectures were over, as per the timetable, Dr. Abasaheb used to go to the senior classes once a week for half an hour; asking questions to improve the communication skill of students. The practice continues even today.
Accountancy Problems
Most of the students in commerce faculty find accountancy a tough proposition. They are always afraid of it and hence they join tuition classes. After consulting many an experienced teacher in Mumbai, it transpired that students are not properly guided and hence they simply panic and lose their heart and fail in this subject. All this happens because of their failure in solving the accountancy problems. If the problems are solved everyday as a matter of habit then students would find accountancy an easy proposition. In view of this, we give, especially to the students of 12th commerce, one problem in accountancy everyday and the same is solved by the students and assessed by our lecturer M. S. Patil everyday. This goes on almost round the academic year without fail. And from our experience, now it can be said that this exercise does lead the students of 12th commerce class to better their performance in the final examination.
Question Bank
We practice whatever is innovative and useful to students. The idea of the question bank has already caught the imagination of many a thinker. It is simple to build up a Question Bank. If one collects questions on a subject according to the syllabuses from University question papers, the question bank comes to be exhaustively built up. Out of the questions in the bank, twelve questions are selected for each subject and class, of the senior wing. Out of these twelve questions, questions are given at random for mid-term tests and terminal examination. In the end, one practice examination is held without fail in February. Since questions are known to the students, passing is made compulsory and their failure in the examinations invites fine. These practice examinations of the senior students eliminate the element of surprise in the sudden death examinations. "Our students go to the examination hall fully loaded to shoot at sight and shoot to kill questions."
In addition to this, students are told not only questions before hand but also points on which answers are to be built up. This naturally trains the student to think relevantly to complete the paper within three hours and to get good marks. After all, the performance in the examination gives a measure of their intelligence.