Vice Chancellor of Sikkim University Prof. Mahendra P. Lama visits Soreng B. Ed. College

Gangtok/Sikkim/:Nov22 :The Founding Vice Chancellor of Sikkim University Prof. Mahendra P. Lama along with his team visited Govt. B-Ed College Soreng at West Sikkim on 21st November 2011.The SU team was warmly welcomed by the entire college headed by the Principal Dr. Bimal Rai. The Principal in his welcome speech expressed his happiness and said that it was an honour to have the Founding Vice Chancellor and his team visit the college. The Principal presented a brief report of the College stating the results of the College in the past Semester which had 96 students and the pass percentage was 100%, with one student obtaining 92% as the highest percentage. His report also focused on the various activities that the students and faculty of the college were involved in.There were various presentations on many important themes and topics by the Sikkim University members. Sohel Firdos gave a presentation on the Result Analysis of the Govt. B-Ed College Soreng and pointed out the areas where there was room for improvement.Tripurari Sinha, Assistant Registrar from SU presented on Admission and New Courses.  Swati Sachdeva presented on Gender Sensitizing Unit (GSU) and Anti-Ragging and how these menaces could be curbed and eradicated from University Campuses.  Newton Singh presented on the ‘Winter Sojourn’ of Sikkim University and invited students and faculty of the college to join them during the field work based winter sojourn trip to various parts of Sikkim and the neighboring states and countries to do research on 18 interesting topics.
Chunnu Khawas presented on the University Website and informed about the new upcoming website of SU with the new developments and facilities for the browsers to know all about Sikkim University. She also said that in course of only three years of the website’s existence it had already been visited my more than 12 lakh browsers. There was a presentation on the Sikkim University Museum by Sangmu Thendup, where she spoke about the creation of the Sikkim University Museum and the importance of museums in this part of the country as collectors, restorers and preservers of the rich cultural and natural heritage of Sikkim and the neighbouring areas. Samar Sinha presented on the Library, and informed about the accession of 23000 books and 5000 online journals along with other facilities like wi-fi internet connection, computers and reading facilities. He invited students and faculty members form the college to visit the library and make use of the facilities there. Edith Sailo presented on the Internal Quality Assessment which has been made mandatory by the UGC to improve the quality of teaching and teachers at the college and university level.Tamal Guha, the Librarian of SU in his address said that now SU had started the 10th Satellite library with Soreng  B-Ed College being the 10th college within the ambit of SU Satellite Channel.C.B.Sunwar, Fellow Academic of SU advised the students to prepare two and a half times more for their end semester examinations as compared to the mid semester examinations and encouraged the would be teachers to allow their students to be innovative.S.K Guring, COE spoke about the Semester Systems and its importance and advantages to maintain uniformity. He also spoke about other provisions of the University like the Zero Semester, Attendance incentives, improvement paper etc.These presentations were followed by the Oral History Documentary film show prepared by SU, which was followed by a short address by T.K.Thomas, Visiting Professor, who urged students of B-Ed to take up Masters of Mass Communication after they finish their B-Ed because now the CBSE has introduced Mass Communication as one of the subjects to be taught at the school level and soon there is going to be a great demand for teachers having a combination of B-Ed and Mass Communication.Then there was sharing of experience by one faculty member, one student and one guardian from Soreng. The student representative Kyondit Lepcha made strong demand for more teachers and other facilities in the college. Gahar Udhas, former Principal of Senior Secondary School highly applauded the role of Sikkim University in transforming the higher education system in Sikkim and expressed the hope that the University and the B Ed college would together fulfil the aspirations of the young generation of Sikkim.At the end, the Founding Vice Chancellor Prof Lama addressed the gathering and praised the college authorities and students of the college for its achievements in a short span of two years of its existence. The Vice Chancellor spoke about the importance of college visits to integrate the entire system of education and substantial achievements in the field of higher education with both colleges and schools. He said “we have clear choices: to flow around the rock or over the rock, and we should adopt the latter one and prove that we are inclusive in character”. He said that the students at Sikkim University enter as students and emerge as scholars. They do not come with caste, religion and region based identities as they are taught at the university to achieve higher and global identities. He said that all over the world, the best institutions have flourished because of three fundamental factors:Excellent TeachersGood Infrastructure and respect for public spacesStudents from all overHe said that good teachers do not come only to earn a living, but they become teachers to develop and create better generations of the future. “A good teacher should be able to transform a normal child into a talented human being”. He said that there are very few students from Sikkim who get opportunity to go outside the state and the country to pursue their education and the reason why they go to DU, JNU, Colombia University and Oxford University is to avail better facilities and infrastructure. But now the very best teachers, facilities and infrastructure and competitive teaching and learning environment would be available in Sikkim University for all the students in and around Sikkim and the neighbouring areas. Prof Lama also encouraged Students to respect public space.Professor Lama also stressed the importance of having students from all over the globe to have a healthy, congenial environment and competitive environment for all the students and their all round development. He said that the issue of local and non local would not allow our students to be capable to compete at the Global level, so we should look beyond these petty issues when it comes to education and knowledge and building ones’ own career. This is how others built their regions, nations and communities. He said that Sikkim University functions on the above three principles of excellence, so soon the University would be no less than Hitiosubashi, Oxford, Cambridge, Colombia or JNU. He asked the students to enjoy their semester system and their studies like they enjoy their other entertaining activities. Moreover, Sikkim has several advantages of nature, weather and peaceful environment and the vast knowledge of our elder generations, so students should make use of these boons.  He said that now we should change the image of Sikkim from being known for its tourism and scenic beauty to a Sikkim which is renowned as a hub of knowledge and education. Lastly, he said that while building institutions we have to shun our personal interests and work for greater interests of the entire community, country and the future generation because we as humans may have a life span of a few decades but institutions would be there for centuries to come. If we compromise on our education today then we will destroy our future generations. He ended his discourse by saying that we should always think big and think out of the box and make Sikkim the Knowledge Capital of the world. 
Source-Sikkimmail