Scope

What is SCOPE?
 
SCOPE (Society for Creation of Opportunity through Proficiency in English), established in 2007, by the Government of Gujarat to build English language proficiency in the youth of Gujarat and thereby create employment opportunities for them has been the most successful PPP model in the state with an established network of 300+ centres through Five Zonal Training Partners (ZTPs) for the purpose of providing English language training to candidates. Another 600+ and odd colleges are also SCOPE centres. SCOPE programme is centred on three challenges of education – Access, Equity and Quality.

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The context that required the initiation of the practice:
 
SCOPE is ‘Society for Creation of Opportunity through Proficiency in English’. It is a Gujarat government initiative in collaboration with CambridgeUniversity. On line computer adaptive examination is being held and the successful candidates are awarded CambridgeUniversity certificates which have international relevance. Gujarat government came up with a plan to improve English of students and faculty. We, being English Department, took the responsibility of running the program and running it successfully. In the better performance and acquiring of good information, proficiency in English language is greatly required. For the students also good command over this international language is the need of the time. Without this world language the youth of today will feel himself lame. He will be proved inefficient and half literate. Good command over English language is a matter of prime concern in this highly competitive market. The government of Gujarat viewed a dream that the youth of Gujarat should be able to talk to the world in the language that the world knows. We belong to a rural / semi-urban area near the Western border in India. Majority of our students’ intake is from under developed rural area. So their knowledge of English language is very poor. Hence, we decided to improve the poor language skill of our students and we started this program.

Objectives of the practice:

  • To help the students improve their proficiency in English language
  • To make them read their text books, reference books, magazines and journals in English.
  • To make them able to operate computers, this also is the need of the hour that requires competence in English language.
  • To make them able to use and get benefits of the Internet, with the help of which they can avail every information by their finger tips.
  • To build their self confidence.
  • To enhance their personality.
  • To open the window of the world market for them, through the competence that they would have acquired by English language
  • To make them efficient and confident for job opportunities
  • To help them in their Research work
  • To help the teachers also to acquire more and more knowledge and information related to their subjects, for their routine teaching practice
The Practice:
 
With the above mentioned context and objectives we initiated the SCOPE Programme in our college in the year 2010-2011 under the active care and guidance of Prof. S. R. Patel as coordinator. In the beginning of the year we orient the students about the aim and objectives of SCOPE, its advantages and relevance in the present scenario. For the first time 180 students joined the course. We provided them with the set of 30 CDs prepared by SCOPE. Those CDs contain audio-visual lectures of English language learning. Along with this we gave them exercise of English grammar and also some listening sessions. After this practice 18 students appeared in the test and all of them successfully got through. The same way in the year 2011-2012 we registered total 360 students for SCOPE Exam. Many of them secured higher grade as B1/B2/C1. (C2 is the highest grade in the hierarchy.) At present Dr. Dilip Patel is the Co-ordinator of SCOPE. He has been constantly motivating and inspiring the students to take part in it and make their career bright.

Table showing the Progressive report of session wise registration for SCOPE Exam in last 3 years

Year

 

No. of Candidates

LevelofExam.

Scheme

Total
Candidates
in the
Year

2013-2014

130

A / B

OAS / CPT

130

2014-2015

51

A / B

OAS / CPT

51

2015-2016

62

A1,A2,B1,B2,C1,C2

CPT/BULLATS

62

OAS = Only Assessment Scheme
CPT = Cambridge Placement Test
BULLATS = Business Language Testing Service
 
We encourage them to join this course maximum in number and constantly help them in solving their problems in language learning. Thus, we make maximum efforts to strengthen their four components of language learning: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.
Impact of the practice:
 
About 1000 students have got the benefits of this programme. This SCOPE certificate helps the students to add some merit points when they go for job interviews. Our college staffs has also got its benefit. The students have started using the computer more. They come to the lab so often for using the net. Now they consult us more about their language problems. It shows their growing interest in English language learning. They can now read their books in English on their subjects. It has encouraged them to move a little bit away from cramming, as now they can read original text books. It has also developed some confidence in them.