Bridge Courses: The Beauty of Bridging the Education Gap

Focussed Education acts as Bridge from what I am to Who I want to be…

As we transit from the pre-university level towards the professional programmes like engineering, management, medicine, pharmacology, nursing, journalism, hospitality etc., the teaching methodology as well as the studying pattern undergoes a drastic change. And it is then, that the guidance and hand-holding of the teaching fraternity is much more required than anywhere else. The usage of Bridge Course comes into picture through this hand-holding phase for the newly inducted students. This course Bridges the gap from the Academia towards the Industry, through Industry relevant, Innovatively Designed curriculum, focussing on the Global perspective of Education.  

The objective of the Bridge Courses is primarily focussed to benefit the slow learners. It aims at leveraging their learning skills. The Bridge Courses also focus on the pupil with different learning abilities, academic standards and performances. These courses help to bring back the slow learners to the mainstream classes to the best of their potential who would have had fallen behind due to some or the other reason. The content is so built up, that the self-confidence of the students enhances to face questions/exams and create awareness about incremental learning. As the name “Bridge Course” suggests, it is intended to facilitate the bridging of the gap between the pre-university level and professional education.

Many universities and premier institutions these days focus on providing a preliminary insight on the course being offered to the greenhorns through a course which plugs the gaps between the expectations and learning of the subjects being offered in a particular course, which they fulfil through the Bridge Courses before the actual learning starts.  In this VUCA world it becomes imperative for the educational institutions to condition their product well before launching him/her into the full-fledged learning mode. This conditioning prepares them to be academic ready and not burdened by the course material. This gives them a fair idea of the curriculum and its importance in the course.

Considering the pandemic situation the delay in beginning the courses has become quite normal. The universities are themselves caught up with much pendency such as examinations/results/approvals from the ministry and so forth.   This delay kills the interest of the students enrolled for the courses. Therefore, these days not only the premier institutions but the central and state level universities have also begun with imparting the Bridge Courses in the new subjects being offered to the students. This gives them a glimpse of the whole course and prepares them mentally for roadmap to take in order to succeed in a particular course.

GNIOT Institute of Management Studies maintains this task to attune its prospective Millennial Managers to the course they are to be bequeathed. They are facilitated to take a sneak peek into the curriculum through the Bridge Course which is aimed at accomplishing the students potential to learn, relate and get inspired with a Business Driven Globally Focussed Education designed Innovatively and inspired by the Industry Relevant content. The Bridge course at GIMS indeed gives the students a rigour to mould themselves for the Two-year journey they have undertaken and give a base to their pie-in-the-sky methodology that they had loaded in their baggage before arriving for the course. 

Dr. Shalini Sharma, Associate Professor,

Area Chair-Communication and Development