Best Practices 2020-21

• To ensure uninterrupted running of the teaching-learning process
• To minimize the inconvenience caused to students and teachers induced due to the pandemic
• To ensure the smooth functioning of the academic process
• To shift the classroom teaching from an offline to online mode
• To encourage research and reading amongst teachers and students through remote access facilities

The pandemic posed before the college a unique situation wherein the entire mode of research, teaching and learning had to be shifted online. Hence, changes were introduced in the teaching process and additional facilities were initiated by the library to meet the changing demands of the current times.

To meet the demands of this new situation, ILS Law College took up certain significant measures:

a) Remote Access to Library

The college is known to have a huge collection of books/magazines/ periodicals and is one of its kind. It also one of the most important source of reference books and reading material for students and teachers. To encourage the academic process, the library transformed the use of databases from IP based to remote access. For this purpose, every teacher and student was given an institutional email id. Most legal databases were made available to students right at their homes. The library also started with the MYLOFT facility for smoother functioning of the remote access. For databases not having remote access facility, direct access facility was made available to the students and teachers. The library arranged numerous training sessions for teachers and students with respect to the use of online legal databases. In furtherance of its activities, the library created a separate Teachers Repository consisting of all articles and academic material written by the teachers. This was made online on the college library.

The library also came up with an effective feedback and grievance redressal system to ensure enriching academic experience. All this has ensured that students and teachers have access to academic material at their fingertips and for 24 hours a day.

https://ilslaw.edu/library/remote-access-facility/

b) Promoting Academic Interest

As an academic institution par excellence, the college wanted to ensure zero disruption of academic activities. Hence, the college shifted the entire classroom teaching to G-Suite. This was done in stages with the first step being purchase of licensed version of G-Suite. This was followed by training to all teachers and students on the functioning of G-Meet and the procedure of use of Google Classroom. Classes were conducted via google meet. Study material, PPTs and scanned reading material was regularly shared by the teachers on the google classroom. The college also distributed laptops to all the teaching faculty members for a hassle-free experience. The teachers were further encouraged to contribute academic material nd readings to Savitribai Phule Pune University (SSPU) which is published on the university website.

Since the announcement of lockdown in March 2020, the college has been successfully conducting lectures online. Moreover, the college has even successfully conducted the entire examination process through google classroom and google meet. The success of this process is evident through high pass percentage of students at the institutional and university level. Even during the pandemic teachers of the college have published various articles and papers in reputed journals and books. Students, through the use of online resources could easily participate in various moot courts and other competitions. various guest lecture and conferences were organized by the college with the help of g-suite.

The entire process was challenging because it was for the first time the entire academic process had to be instituted in an online mode. Many students who lived in remote and rural areas faced connectivity issues due to which they had problems in regular attending of classes. Another problem was lack of adequate laptops for every teaching member, therein requiring purchase of laptops for faculty members. Moreover, few of the online database providers were not cooperative in providing remote access which required an additional process of accumulating teacher and students email in a single source and mailing it to the concerned database providers. The entire process required utilization of additional financial resources on part of the college.

• To develop analytical and speaking skills and to enable discussion on important issues, whether scientific, historical, religious or political.
• To stimulate and refine communication skills that empowers individuals to speak for themselves and to discover and use their own voices.
• To promote increased confidence, poise, oral skills, critical thinking skills and teamwork skills, plus increase proficiency in basic skills such as reading, speaking, analyzing and reasoning, and interpersonal skills such as listening and cooperating.
• To promote leadership skills among the students. 

In today’s dynamic world, it is necessary for the students to understand and appreciate the object and socio-legal aspects behind that legislations and statutes. To facilitate a better understanding of law to students this competition was conceived and started by the ILS Law College Pune. This competition was also started to contribute to the intellectual and ethical development of its participants by challenging them to make defensible judgments in which they must critically investigate complex issues, question given assumptions, evaluate the reliability of data and consider alternative perspectives. Furthermore, Moot

Competitions only provide a law bound answers and thinking than a logical and strategic thinking, which is required for a lawyer in every case at stages prior to court, such as negotiation, mediation etc., hence, to teach top-notch critical and strategic thinking skills, high quality research and argument production this competition was started.

The Debating Society of ILS Law College organized its Ninth Parliamentary Debate at National Level as 9th Justice Tarkunde National Parliamentary Debate 2021”. The plan of the competition was unique. This competition was conceived as a one of its kind, with the aim of promoting skills of debating following similar if not identical format and procedure of the parliament. The idea is that when “motions” (ideas for change or concern) are brought before the “house”; (the governing body) the discussion should take a certain format so that the playing field is fair. First, there is a “government team”, consisting of three people, and an “opposition team”, also with three members. It is the government’s job to support or uphold the “motion” (topic of the debate). Usually the government team discusses a problem in the topic area and has a specific proposal for change regarding that problem. It is the burden of the opposition team to play & devil’s advocate so to speak. The opposition team tries to find the weaknesses in the government arguments. Thus, throughout the debate, the government and opposition teams clash on the issues

regarding the problem in a back and forth fashion. A topic of debate called motion is provided to the few minutes before the competition. Awards and Cash Prizes for Winning Team, Runners Up and Semi Finalists including Best Speaker award, Cash Prize for Best Adjudicator and Second-Best Adjudicator as well as Cash Prize for the Best Internal

Adjudicator is also awarded. 

The competition was organized from 26^th February to 28^th February 2021. The debate witnessed a participation of 120 speakers  and 67 adjudicators from all over the country from several prestigious institutions including IIT Bombay, NALSAR Hyderabad, RVCE Bangalore, NUJS Kolkata, NLU Jodhpur, MSRIT Bangalore and SLS Pune, etc. In the Final round, the motion for the debate was “apoliticality is immoral”. The competition was huge success which can be gathered from the vast and diverse participation. Moreover, despite the pandemic, the event was concluded virtually which saw a huge number of audiences to hear the arguments. 

The pandemic has posed new challenges before us in every aspect of life. The parliamentary debate was no exception, when for the first time the college had to organize the entire national level debate online. The COVID19 being a novel situation required intricate and complex planning right from the initial stages of the competition till its conclusion. Students and faculty organizers had to work remotely and coordinate with all the participants spread across India. The entire format of the event had to be transferred into a virtual mode which required a new set of skills and innovation. A strong technical system had to be instituted for a hassle-free experience. The scope of research was limited due to non-accessibility to libraries and reading rooms. The major resources requirement was the virtual platform for the conduct of the activity in a simple yet effective manner.