First and foremost, I like to extend my greetings to the students, the guardians and the staffs of the Kantipur International college. I hope that everyone is keeping a good health in the midst of a rather fearful worldwide pandemic Covid 19. I wish them a safe time in the days to come.
This year has brought kind of mixed feelings for our country. On one hand, we have graduated from the Least Developed Country to Middle Income Country. We have finally got rid of that stigmatic tag of underdevelopment. On the other hand, we have living through the difficult times marked by the rising infections of Covid 19. I am hopeful that we will get off the cruel hook of the pandemic by following precautionary measures such as maintaining social distance and others.
We are marching ahead with the aspiration of achieving a prosperous and happy Nepal. it has to launch development activities in a fast pace to accomplish this noble objective. In this campaign, Engineering and Architecture have an enormous responsibility. Nepal is well known for its unique art and architecture. If architecture contributes to the beauty of a country, engineering helps it to make this dream come true. Kantipur International College is offering Engineering and Architecture courses to the students in order to produce a human resource that can help Nepal in its stride towards development.
KIC has been undertaking series of innovative steps in this direction. One of them is the signing of Memorandum of Understanding with the Mahalaxmi Municipality in order to offer engineering and architectural services by engaging the students and the faculties of this college. We are the first Engineering College in Nepal to undertake such a campaign with the Local Government. Consequently, a consultancy proposal has been submitted to the Municipality for the preparation of the Master Plan of the birthplace of Shringi Rishi who helped for the birth of Ram, Laxman, Bharat and Shatrughan by performing a Putresthi Fire Ritual. The students are also being given Project works in areas where the Municipality is launching their developmental works. These and other such collaborative activities would have reached to dizzy heights by now. But Covid 19 has created bit of a set back at the present. KIC is hopeful that this bad dream will pass off soon and we will be back to our usual self very soon.
We have also signed such Memorandum with the Lubhu Drinking Water and Sanitation Consumer Institution, Lower Confluence Drinking Water Project. We took the students for the site visit and the students have been familiar with the problems that they will confront when they graduate and begin offering professional services. We have also prepared a Proposal for the pumping of water from Godavari upstream to Lubhu Town.
We have also launched several steps to enhance the teaching environment in the College. We have recently opened a Research, Consultancy and Training Unit in the College. This Unit will help run the customary regular courses in the morning. In the afternoon, students and faculties will take part in the Research, Consulting and Training Works. Furthermore, the classes have been made high tech by installing Television Screens which has created a huge paradigmatic shift by bidding goodbye to the classical chalk and talk teaching method in practice in the country. Regular Teaching Training is underway leading to the observation of teaching in the class culminating in the delivery of feedback to the teachers concerned. Most importantly, the focus has been to ensure that the students complete their academic responsibility inside the class and go home light and free as against carrying the academic baggage due to lack of clarity in the class.
Covid 19 has worked as a stumbling block in the realization of aforementioned objectives. But we are sure that we will combat this war with the pandemic and switch on to our plan and program soon.
Even in such hard times, we tried to be in contact with our students by running on line classes. We also arranged talk in important issues which were delivered by the experts and connoisseurs. We are sure the students were able to take advantage of these programs. We will continue these activities till the country returns to full normalcy. We are very thankful to the students and their parents for making these events a grand success.
We hereby wish health and happiness to all our students and parents. We are sure that all of you are safe from Covid19 and will remain so in future.