Faculty-Student Research Convention Held
In an effort to contribute towards achieving RUB’s goal of promoting research led educational practices in higher educating in the country and also to live by the ideals of the College to become a center of excellence committed to research and innovation in education, Samtse College of Education organised the 2020 Autumn ‘Faculty-Student Research Convention’ on 17th October, 2020.
Dr. Ganeshman Gurung, Acting Dean of Research and Industrial Linkages in his introduction said that unlike in the past, this convention is little unique because only research proposals awarded with research grants from the Annual University Research Grant (AURG) and Research Endowment Fund (REF) are being presented in the convention along with research proposals that have been submitted for the College Research Stimulus Fund (CRSF). The President of the College in his opening remark shared that the ‘Faculty-Student Research Convention is aimed at building a robust research culture in the College. He also emphasised that SCE as one of the oldest education institutions in the country, the image of the College is hinged to a large extent on the quality of research determined by soundness in proposal development in terms of methodological soundness, depth of knowledge of the phenomenon researched, high standards of academic writing and generating outputs that are of high impact. Speaking on quality research, the President stated that through such conventions, the College aims to discourage sub-standard and superficial quality of research. Furthermore, the President highlighted that as higher education academics, research has manifold benefits and opens the floodgates to knowledge for creative and innovative education practices.
According to the convention organizers, the theme of this meet is ‘Modelling excellence in teaching, learning and assessment across the disciplines’. Some of the objectives of event were ‘to promote original high quality research and scholarly pursuits that will significantly contribute to the enhancement of knowledge base; promote opportunity for researchers to share their work with fellow colleagues and students; provide forum for researchers to come together, critique and learn from each other; and to provide opportunity for students to participate in research event and enhance their research knowledge, skills and awareness.
All faculty members and a few M.Ed students who lives in Samtse attended the convention in person following the COVID-19 safety protocols while the rest of the M.Ed students participated virtually via Zoom. Mr. Tshering Penjore, one of the M.Ed students who attended real time virtually via Zoom shared, “research convention platform gave him immense wisdom and rich information on research components. Also, it has benefited the research beginners like him in terms of building courage, motivation and future scopes”. Another M.Ed student, Mr. Tashi Dendup said, they are looking forward to similar events in future as it has helped novices like him to get deeper understanding of research components. “It was a great experience and felt deeply happy to have presented the proposal and without such forum we would not have received valuable feedback and comments”, concluded Mr. Ugyen Dorji, a Mathematics faculty who also presented his proposal.
A total of 11 proposals were presented where faculty members and student participants asked questions, sought clarifications, suggested changes with constructive comment to improve the research proposals thus making the research convention a highly engaging, interactive and enriching experience for all.
