The education in the programs under INDUSTRY & INSTITUTION COLLABORATIVE EDUCATION (IICEP) is characterized by person-centered approach, where the rigor and standards are maintained on par with the SBSP’s system of education on-campus. These programs judiciously combine the flexibility and ingenuity of the outreach educational system with all the regular features of the on campus education system. Also, the learning and evaluation process draws upon the successful and established methodologies followed by the Institution. The work learning environment of a student under the IICEP, the programs consist of two broad-based facets:
Academic Environment created by COUNCIL for ERADICATION of SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL ILLITERACY (CESTI) and its Information & Guidance Centre based Instructors, who are Faculty drawn from different disciplines; Student’s own Work Environment from which assignments, projects, seminars etc., may emerge to integrate theory and practice. A (locally-based) Mentor imparts structured guidance and conducts certain evaluation components (see Role of Mentor);The Central aim to the educational philosophy of the COUNCIL for ERADICATION of SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL ILLITERACY (CESTI) being the dialectical link between theory and practice, the student’s own work environment provides an ideal ground, where theory could be meaningfully combined with practice through Assignments, Case Studies, Laboratory-Oriented Projects, Work Experience, In-service Training, Internship, Thesis-Seminars and Dissertation. These evaluation components and courses search for evidence of self-study, time planning, conceptual understanding and application of the concepts in a real-life situation, self-reliant articulation, enthusiasm for awareness of and participation in new pedagogy. One of the distinctive features of this system is that the complete formalization of pursuit of education at the work-learning environment. An organization creates a work learning environment by providing academic sponsorship for the candidates as well as infrastructural facilities such as place for conducting formal classes/ mentor interactions/ examination apart from library, computer and laboratory access.
The work learning environment form a strict requirement in order to infuse a strong component of teacher-student contact through course instructors as well as Mentor (a senior officer of the student’s own organization). Thus, the work-learning environment is a very important component of the person- centered learning process. There is, in the design, a clear arrangement of periodic personal discussion in the work-learning environment with the students so that their progress is directly monitored by planned interaction. Further, the students at the work-learning environment receive help from mentors. Throughout the student’s learning process, which is conducted in his own work place, through systematic self-study, and self-learning process, the student remains continually in contact with the course instructors for any clarifications. Thus the operation is an imaginative combination of the contact hours and tutoring of the on-campus system with the student-centered self-study feature of the outreach system and an organizational and pedagogic commitment of the collaborating organizations. The student is at once, a full- time student as well as full-time employee.