As part of the programme, I was expected to undertake a Masters
course programme. I felt that the course
there is much more in-depth and there is a lot of time for self-learning. Also, there is a concept of mandatory and
non-mandatory classes in KI, which allows the students to choose whether to
attend a particular class or not. At TISS, the student is expected to attend atleast
75% of the courses. In TISS, the
students are expected to do their reading outside the class room hours, while
in KI, there was separate time allocated for the same. Even for group work
assignments, the timings were built in the course work. In terms of teaching methods and the
student-teacher relationship, there were similarities between KI and TISS. At
KI, efforts were made by the teacher to reach out the student and ensure that
the classroom teachings are being translated to the students, in TISS it if
often the student who has to make the efforts to reach out to the students. At
TISS, the students are exposed to a lot of courses and are provided with a bird’s
eyeview of the different subjects, while at KI an indepth understanding of each
of the topics is provided. TISS focuses on the communicable and non-
communicable diseases in the course, while public health courses at KI are more
inclined towards non-communicable diseases. There is very limited exposure
about the diseases from developing and under-developing countries at public
health course offered in KI. The
logistic arrangement of the courses is well planned and the reading materials
are provided well in advance. The use of Ping-Pong platform for students is
very useful and the same could be adapted by TISS to encourage the discussion among
the students and with the teachers. This will also help in streamlining of the
courses at TISS. Group assignments are very well organised at KI, which ensures
that all students in the course are provided with opportunities to demonstrate
their skills and learning’s. The use of
mid-term reviews are excellent and provide the students with an opportunity to
ensure that their learning’s are in the right direction and the feedback system
is excellent with the supervisor individual comments to the students.