Dr. V. Krishnakumar is working as the Director of RVS Group of Institutions, Dindigul, Tamilnadu. He is an accomplished professional with 39 years of rich experience. He has been serving as a Principal in reputed engineering colleges for the past 16 years. Prior to that, he was working as a senior faculty for 8 years in a reputed college. In addition to this, he is having 16 years of experience in the industry.

He obtained B.Tech., M.Tech. and Ph.D., in the field of Textile Technology. He has published many research articles in Textile Technology and in allied disciplines' peer-reviewed journals.

He has executed various funding projects like APSSDC-Siemens skill development project, AICTE sponsored projects, DSIC, NSIC sponsored projects and DST Science and Engineering Research Board projects. He is the recipient of many awards, including the RIETER International Award from Switzerland for the UG project guided and the best project award continuously for three years at the college level. He is a member of the board of studies in various autonomous colleges and university textile departments. He has joined as the director of the RVS Trust Group of 10 educational institutions at Dindigul with a vision to make them globally well known.

RVSENG

What are the key factors that keep you connected with the education sector?

“My desire is to bridge the gap between industry and academia”

My 16 years of Industrial experience has taught me one thing, students who come out as fresh graduates, are either not aware of the industry's expectations or not acquainted with the required skills and knowledge. To bridge this gap, the college has to focus more on exposing the students to the industrial environment. I joined the education sector in 1998 after so many well-spent years in the industry. I found that students are having interested to know about the industry sector, but the input given by the institution is inadequate. At this juncture, my industrial experience helped me to deliver the required content to the students and also made them understand their industrial needs. 

What is your philosophy of leadership?

“Collaborative efforts, ownership of tasks and learning attitude”

In my opinion, leadership is nothing but guiding the available manpower to achieve their desired goals. Being a good leader, I always guide my colleagues at all levels and see that they achieve the desired results. The second thing is that a leader should always be ready to learn new things, no matter what knowledge is gained from junior or senior colleagues. Overall, a leader should be capable enough to guide and motivate his team to work in a collaborative and supportive way. 

How do you prepare your students for this competitive world?

“With proper planning and execution of academic programs”

Speaking honestly, my aim is to make sure that students are getting the required input right from day one. Students who join soon after their secondary or higher secondary school do not know that they are lagging behind soft skills. Hence our objective is to make them comfortable with various required skills. To ensure this, we usually divide placement training into six modules and each module is covered carefully in the particular semester like, communication and behavioral skills in the first semester, presentation and aptitude skills in the second and third semester, activities like group discussion skills in the fourth semester, and programming and coding skills in the fifth semester and internship in the sixth semester. In the seventh semester, the students are also guided for pursuing higher studies, learning about entrepreneurship skills and preparing for Civil Service exams. So their learning path is drafted very carefully to make them industry-ready.

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How do you establish a healthy relation and environment in your college?

“Through a cordial relationship with all the stack holders including parents and attentive approach for students and teachers”

In order to establish a healthy relationship with our students, we should maintain a cordial relationship with parents and win their confidence in us, because parents are sending their wards to study in our college with some dream or expectation. Next, the curricular and extracurricular activities, conducted in the college are mostly students centric, which means those activities are planned by keeping in mind students' needs on skills set. Coming to faculties and fellow colleagues, we ensure 100% support, cooperation and commitment in resolving their issues and queries through an environment of open communication, trust and mutual respect. So that, everyone can feel that they are equally important to the organization. That sense of belongingness should be in a place. 

What do you think should be the college's top priority over the next 10 years?

“To be ahead of where we are in terms of education and infrastructure”

Our college should keep upgrading and updating itself, be it in terms of infrastructure, education quality or enhancing relationships with industry partners so that we can deliver the best as per industry demands, challenges and academic policies. In other words, we should adopt the framework of flexibility and determination to expand our reach to more and more students across the whole country and probably the world also. All these days, we are all talking about 70% quantitative parameters 30% quality parameters, but NEP 2020 may throw more aspects on qualitative parameters and that is very important.

How do you strategize and update the curriculum to make it befitting for the students?

“By taking into account students' needs and industry demands”

We do follow University guidelines for the curriculum which is updated after every 4 years after a rigorous analysis of industrial demands and the quality of education that we are offering. Our relationship with the industry partners helps a lot in this because they guide and update us in the right direction through events like seminars, webinars and guest lectures. Also, our Alumni play a major role here as every one of them is working in different sectors, so their suggestions and supports are equally valuable.

How does your college prepare students for placements?

“We have a well-drafted personality development program for this”

In order to make our student's placement ready, we have divided our placement training module into six parts as already explained. In the first semester, students are exposed to various kinds of soft, behavioral skills and communication-based training programs. While in the second semester, we work on enhancing their aptitude and logical reasoning along with an emphasis on programming skills, because this is the part stage of an interview. We also conduct various types of group discussions to teach them how to implement communication and negotiation skills during actual Interviews. Next, in the third year, they are taught presentation and HR skills. Overall, by the time they enter the final year, they will be capable enough to decide whether they want to go for higher studies or entrepreneurship.

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Any valuable advice would you like to give to the students for a prosperous career? 

“Take responsibility for your life, time and decisions”

I expect that students should be in a position to take the right decisions at every stage of their life. Similarly, they should not get distracted by social media or other nonproductive resources. To ensure this, they have to develop habits like reading good books and newspapers. They have to focus more on developmental activities.