Azim Premji University holds its third convocation – Awards Masters' Degrees in Education and Development

The Azim Premji University held its third convocation ceremony on 5 September 2015 at Bangalore. Mr. Azim Premji, Chancellor of the University conferred degrees on the third batch of 220 students. The students, who were conferred with the degrees today, are already orking with various social sector organizations across the country, having completed the program in May 2015.

Established in 2010, the Azim Premji University is founded and sponsored by Azim Premji Foundation. The University is a philanthropic, not-for profit institution with a clear social purpose, of contributing towards a just, humane, equitable and sustainable society. For this the University is focused on offering programs and conducting research in Education and related areas of Human Development.

In addition to the two post graduate programs in Education and Development, from July 2015 the University also started offering a post graduate program in Public Policy & Governance and an Undergraduate program. The masters programs have multiple specializations e.g. in Curriculum and Pedagogy, Early-childhood-education, Education Management, Health and Nutrition, Law & Governance, Livelihoods, Public Policy and Sustainability. The Undergraduate program currently offers majors in Physics, Biology, Humanities and Economics. As of now, the University has around 780 students and over 220 faculty and staff.

The University is deeply committed to diversity and to offering equal opportunity to students from disadvantaged backgrounds: around 50% of students at the university come from rural areas and small towns of India, over 50% of the students are women and around 50% of the students are offered financial support by the University.

The University also engages significantly with capacity enhancement of professionals working in the fields of education and other fields such as health and rural development. Over 100 in-service programmes have been conducted since inception. Most of these programs have been focussed on professionals working in public systems.

The University is sponsored by the Azim Premji Foundation which has been working very closely with the Government school systems of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand since 2001. This work spans all dimensions relevant for improvement in quality and equity in the government schooling systems e.g. capacity development of teachers, of head teachers & other functionaries, curriculum improvement, assessment reform, pre-service teacher education, policy issues etc.

Source : Equity Bulls

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