Q: How do you locate the vision of TISS in the context of the call for higher education to respond to social realities?
A: Under the visionary leadership of Tatas, TISS was started in 1936 to train professional social workers in context the great depression where the urban centres like Bombay was facing serious health and livelihood crises impacting particularly the working class. Subsequently, be during the partition tragedy or in the aftermath of a series of disasters and humanitarian crises, our faculty members and students were actively engaged in mitigating the effects of such crises. After being integrated into the Higher Education ecosystem in the country as a fully funded Deemed to be University in 1964, the basic character of the Institute as a socially responsive institution continued to drive the academic programmes, research, field action and social policy contributions. This legacy continues even today.
Q: Aligned with your Vision, what are the strides TISS is making in adopting NEP 2020?
A: The new NEP aligned FYUG programmes launched by TISS has (i) multidisciplinary learning (ii) strong field engagement, (iii) rigorous research project and (iv) multi-entry and multi-exit options. BSW (Tuljapur), Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences (Guwahati and Tuljapur) and Bachelor of Science in Analytics and Sustainability Studies (Mumbai) are the NEP aligned UG programmes at TISS. New PG programmes include Cities and Governance, Global Mental Health, Animal Assisted Therapy, Disaster Informatics and Geospatial Technologies, two International dual degree programmes as well as a collaborative programme on International Electoral Management and Practices with Election Commission of India.
Q: What do you think are the unique features of TISS Academic programmes?
A: TISS offers a pedagogical approach blended with strong theoretical foundations and practice orientations. Academia, society and industry linkages are the corner stones of all our academic programmes in several transdisciplinary areas. Students will be getting cutting edge training at TISS based on the principles of dignity, social justice and equity. All academic programmes, research and field action are linked to several of the SDGs thereby contributing to the global goals while strongly being rooted in local and regional contexts.
