Institutional Distinctiveness

2018-2019

Among the many areas that the college promotes in its vision and mission, inclusive education is of special concern to us.

Inclusive Campus Focus:

In order to ensure that any sort of physical/financial handicap does not come in the way of learning, SXC has revamped its brick-and-mortar infrastructure .The three cases in point are the Commerce Section of the College that operates in the evening to allow financially weaker student to earn-and-learn, the XRCVC, and the Student Inclusion Cell in College, initiated to expand the 360 -degree approach to Inclusion on campus . The college too has adapted its examination modalities for such students.

• XRCVC:

The Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC) – resource centre for students with disabilities on campus has always strived to bring in the best inclusive education practises on campus but also be a leader at the national level in the field of inclusion and access for persons with disabilities. XRCVC in sync with the College ethos of community outreach, research and education-industry linkages has panned across providing inclusive education services to over 110+ in house students with disabilities (Across the 21 disability types), training services to persons with disabilities across the country, awareness trainings for diverse stakeholders, teacher trainings and inclusive education research and dissemination. Through the academic year 2018-19, XRCVC has reached out to a total of 5311 beneficiaries. Along with 110 students from St. Xavier’s College, 661 persons with disabilities underwent various training programs at the XRCVC (Non-Xavierite). Around 3790 people across various stakeholder groups such as corporates, doctors, students among others were reached out to through various awareness programs. 402 people attended the reading without seeing workshops- a curated program to help spread awareness on assistive technologies across rural as also semi urban areas. Further 348 persons underwent the various stakeholder training programs for accessible content creation and inclusive education aimed at teachers, special educators, teacher training and people interested in building inclusive education services.

The XRCVC has also been a leading advocate for Inclusion and regularly engages with the government machinery to build systemic level changes for inclusion. During this academic year the XRCVC took a stride further in some key areas like:

  • XRCVC Flagship event, ‘Antarchakshu’ – The Eye Within: This year the awareness module was built into an expanded 5 module course titled Diversity Discourse, that can be delivered within educational institutions. The centre started offering this course to the Xavier’s Institute of Communication students this year.
  • Initiated the process of building an Inclusive University Alliance across key higher education institutes to harness collective strength for inclusive education in higher education
  • Actively working at curating and documenting a Special Skills Training Curriculum framework that is envisaged to bridge the much- needed gap in efficient delivery of special skill training to persons with disabilities.

In recognition of its initiatives, St. Xavier’s College received the Nipman Foundation – Microsoft Equal Opportunity Awards 2018 in the category ‘Enabler – Inclusive Schools’.