BEST PRACTICES
Best Practices
Title of the Practice: Staff welfare measures and health Insurance for faculty and students
Objectives:
1. To provide health insurance for students and staff members.
2. To reduce the financial burden of parents as well as institutions.
3. To provide affordable and safe medical coverage and care to staff and students.
4. To ensure good health and well-being.
5. To provide and ensure both students as well as the faculties receive proper coverage.
Context:
The object of the scheme is to lessen the financial burden on the parents of the students during hospitalization on account of illness or injury during their course of study and also to help faculty members by giving proper medical coverage and care.
Practice:
The institution believes that giving priority and preference to the welfare of both staff and students will bring prosperity to the institution and will help the beneficiaries to lessen their concern about their financial burden
Students: A sum of Rs. 20/- is collected from each student at the time of admission.
Staff: Each staff member is contributed a sum of Rs. 500/ to the insurance by the management every month.
Staff welfare measures
- Financial assistance is provided for all the faculties attending FDPs, Workshops, and professional and administrative development programs, outside St. Thomas College of arts and science along with on-duty (OD) within India.
- The institution ensures that no faculties have financial barriers in terms of professional growth and thus financial assistance will be provided for faculties in book publishing.
- The institution encourages staff members to get involved in professional bodies thus we provide financial support towards membership fees of professional bodies.
- In terms of promoting research and integrity, on-duty will be provided for attending programs and PhD research work.
- Faculties can avail the eligible vacation for his/her marriage or medical treatment.
- Faculties can avail of marriage allowance as per the college norms.
- Petty loans (No interest) are provided to the faculties who need financial support from the management
- Employee Provident Fund (EPF) – a popular welfare/saving scheme by the EPFO, according to which a certain amount is deducted from the salary and the management too contributes to the money deposited.
Evidence of success: Over the course of the last five years two staff members and four students have availed benefits of the scheme.
Problem encountered:
The problem encountered while implementing the scheme is that, the scheme covers most of the types of illness and injuries. The scheme can be availed in most of the hospitals and the institution is still upgrading the list for the betterment of the faculties.
Title of the Practice: Scholarships, Financial Aids and Endowment Prizes
Objectives:
1. To ensure that the students are getting proper financial assistance from the institution.
2. To ensure that every deserving student is provided with financial benefits like an endowment prize.
3. To help the student community to give up their financial concerns, thus they could give ample time for studying and scoring better marks.
4. To help the students to get access to quality education by making it both accessible and affordable too.
Context:
The global scenario today demands the learners of any institute to spend more money thus making education a costly and valuable thing to obtain.
Practice:
St. Thomas College of arts and science is known for helping students who seek financial aid in order to complete their education. To help those students institute, apart from guiding them to get government-provided scholarships like Adi Dravidar and Tribal welfare, and MUFES (Madras University Free Education scheme), the institution also provides two other non – governmental scholarships namely Zachariah Mar Dionysius Scholarship and St. Thomas Scholarship.
Many students in the global educational scenario have seen students leave college with massive student loan burdens. Students like them have a limited education as they have the prospect of repaying all of the money they have borrowed for the sake of education. It also puts a great deal of pressure on both the students as well as the parents to acquire a huge amount of money within their limitations. That is the reason why, even if the students wanted to, most of them are unable to pursue occupations that do not pay well at the entry level. A scholarship, on the other hand, is free money that permits students like them, mainly the students of first graduates to pursue their aspirations and follow their dream of completing a degree by reducing the financial barrier, it assists them in achieving their academic and career goals.
Evidence of success:
The institution has enabled the students to get access to a degree program making it affordable so that they have no financial concerns about paying back like an educational loan. Many of the students of this prestigious institution have availed of the scholarships either from the Government or the scholarship that has been provided by the institution.
The institution believes in catering to the needs of rural society because college students from rural backgrounds to are getting admitted to college. Students get an education at a nominal fee of a very low cost, for this purpose institutions are taking into consideration the students who need financial assistance by providing them with scholarships. Apart from providing Scholarships, colleges also give endowment prizes to deserving students every year.
Problem encountered:
The problem encountered by the institution is that a large number of students apply for the scholarship and the funds are limited, thus the institution is trying to get more funds for the betterment of the students. Apart from this, fund resource mobilization has been one of the key challenges for the management to provide the requisite scholarships.
