Dr. Rajee Reghunath is currently the Principal of Amala College of Nursing, Thrissur, Kerala. He has been the principal from 2007 till date and has 16 years of experience in this College. His qualifications include MSc. Community Health Nursing from The Tamilnadu Dr. M.G.R Medical University 1995 and PhD. From MG University in 2010. He is a Ph.D. guide of Indian Nursing Council and Kerala University of Health Sciences. Chief Editor of Kerala Nursing Forum Journal from 2015. He is also M.Phil. & PhD. examiner of various universities and is also a Board Member of Amala Cancer Hospital Society. He has been awarded as the Best Teacher for the Asianet Nursing Excellence Award in 2022. Former Chairman of Nursing Education & Research, Trained Nurses Association of India, Kerala Branch. He has Published 25 Papers regarding Medical sciences, published 6 Malayalam Articles and also done many Projects.

Amala College of Nursing

You have held key positions at education institutes throughout your professional career. What are the key factors that keep you connected with the education sector?

Well, it's mainly my interest in teaching that keeps me connected with the education sector. Also, teaching the future professionals and making them good human beings is basically my first priority. 

Being the Principal of Amala College of Nursing, what is your philosophy of leadership? How would you describe your leadership style?

You know that the nursing college is a professional college and Amala College of Nursing is actually a self-financing nursing college. The ratio of admission in this college is 50% for management and 50% for government seats, even though the professional values are there, we mainly manage students and staff in a cooperative way. We maintain friendship among students and we maintain friendship among the teachers. So, it's teamwork. So basically, a principal is a team leader and all others have equal level in the team and even the students are also treated as friends in the college. That is why even the happiness index in college is much higher if you measure the happiness index. That is why even the majority of the students select our Amala College of Nursing as their first choice immediately after the government nursing colleges because after seeing the website. 

Being the Principal of Amala College of Nursing, how do you strategize about the key programs and plans for the marketing and administration of your school?

We are not directly doing anything as part of the marketing because everything that we are doing is a part of public relations. Amala College of Nursing is the first nursing College in India to get A grade in NAAC accreditation. So that itself is an advertisement for us and we have got an international award recently from Australia. They selected Amala College of Nursing as the best nursing College in Kerala and the best student prize has also been received by the Amala College of Nursing. Also the feedback transfer from the alumni members to the family and to their community, that's another strategy that we have adopted. So as an advertisement either in a magazine or in a news channel, we are not giving anything because we always in the recent admissions last year and the year before we got only students with 100 percentage as for admission, that itself indicates that the student's choice is always at the top in Amala College of Nursing, so we are not doing directly anything for the strategically, for advertisement or directly for the admission of the students

The education systems in India and other foreign countries are structured very differently. In your experience, what can an inbound student gain from studying here in your Amala College of Nursing? 

OK, now the main thing is that along with the academic curriculum, we always try to instill values in students. So, it's a value-based quality education that is our logo. We have allotted so many hours for teaching values and also value based education also, there are several value-based, credits-based skills also conducted for the students in addition to the academic program. So, all these things improve the students and also at the same time, we are conducting so many training programs for the students to empower them to the world standards. For example, the OET training that was started in the institution in collaboration with so many other agencies and we also conduct so many programs with the foreign collaboration with the experts from different countries like UK, Australia. They visit our college and they take classes. Around 40 percent of our alumni are working in foreign countries. They regularly conduct online classes for our students about the facilities, about the nursing services, about the recruitment to other countries etc. So, all these things boost our students. So that they will get the knowledge about what is nursing in other countries and how the nursing care is given in other countries and also motivate the students for employment in India and in other countries.

How does the curriculum of Amala College of Nursing ensure the best practice of industry?

OK, that's what as I mentioned before though as a part of NAAC accreditation, we have implemented so many value-based educations and so many accredited courses also, now these courses are extra to the syllabus and we conduct every year two or three credit based courses that is extra from the syllabus. So, these are all adding credit to the students and they are also participating in so many research programs. We have collaboration with so many engineering colleges and research centers. So, we have developed a robot and a nursing robot recently. There are so many other research projects being done by the students and we are trying to get the patent for some of our products. So, these are some additional inputs the students of our Amala College of Nursing get in addition to the students of other nursing colleges. So certainly, we can say that the students and Amala College of Nursing are gaining a lot of experience, especially related to research about the publication, about the different aspects of nursing care, also our hospital is 1200 belt better multi-speciality Medical College hospital. So, the experience that they are gaining from the hospital is also an immense one

Any insights into how your college could be more welcoming to students of different races or economic backgrounds?

We always try to look for students from other States and other countries. But because of our inbound problems with the government restrictions, we are unable to take the students from other countries because the prospectus itself says that Indian citizens of Kerala origin. So, we are unable to take a person, the students from other States and other countries but we have so many exchange programs. We have collaborations. We are trying to collaborate with some of the universities in Australia and with the UK and other countries. So, we are planning for student exchange programs and staff exchange programs in the future and we will collaborate with one of the universities in Kathmandu very soon. Especially for the geriatric training course. So, we'll soon start that program. So, all these things are related to raising the expectations of the International Society.

What do you think your roles and responsibilities to the College and the students are?

We are satisfying the needs of the students and the students also have a very important role because they are the primary focus of the college. They are participating in the academic activities of the college. They also participate in the clubs like Physical Activity club, Literary club, Social Activity Club and National Service Scheme and Environmental club. So, all these clubs are actively participating and we organize so many social activities, for example- a fund organization in which they organize fund, collect funds and give for the treatment of the poor patients, dialysis patients and cancer patients. They also conduct so many medical camps in the community and community health programs were conducted, awareness programs were conducted. So, they have a good role, the students also participate very well and even for the NAAC accreditation also they are primarily responsible for the accreditation activities. So how they performed the leadership role that they have assumed is a very important point in getting NAAC Accreditation for the Amala College of Nursing. So, it is a shared responsibility by the teachers, by the management and by the students for the progress of the college.

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What do you think should be the College’s top priority over the next 10 years?

We have a strategic plan for our college and we have formulated a strategic plan for the next 10 years. So, the different aspects are considered in the strategic plan. The first strategic plan itself is to improve the quality of education and the quality of outcome of the institution. So especially in terms of students’ knowledge, students career progression and the students appointments in different fields or employment in different fields. So, for that we are planning for national accreditations and international accreditations. Also, we aim for so many other activities, we improve the social activities, get more ranking for the institution and also the students rank within the university examinations. So, we want to improve all those areas. Our college is a postgraduate college. Also, we have a PhD program. So, increasing the number of PhD programs, now 14 students are there. So improving the number of PhD students and improving the awarding of PhD and research publications need to be improved and we are to get at least some 5 or 10 patents in the next 10 years. So improvement in different areas of research, improvement in the infrastructure of the college, also nursing college should become a primary focus, the first or the most prominent college all over India.

What do you see as Amala College of Nursing greatest strengths?

Our strength is that ours is mainly an eco-friendly campus. The 42 acres of land with more than 5000 trees, that's an eco friendly campus. The students are living in an eco-friendly campus and another thing is 100 percent placement of our students, especially for the PG programs and the UG programs and the 100 percent community activities of the students. So these are the major strengths along with that supportive management, So whatever the things, we need was provided by the management, So understanding and supportive management. So these are the major strengths of Amala College of Nursing.

What are some of the biggest challenges you see, both for higher education in general and for Amala College of Nursing specifically?

There are so many opportunities for higher education in Amala College of Nursing, as I mentioned before, our college is a postgraduate college with three specialties in Post graduating facilities. So any students who have completed Bachelors degree exam can do a PG program there and after completing the PG program, if they desire for PhD program then Amala College of Nursing is a PhD Centre for two universities that is the Kerala University Health Sciences and in Nitte University, Mangalore. So they can continue their studies for the PhD program also in Amala College of Nursing and we are planning to start this post doc program in Amala College of Nursing. So these are some of the different opportunities and also we have collaboration with the universities in the UK especially with the Denver universities. So if they are planning to pursue their studies in hospital administrations or any other programs in other countries. That is also possible in Amala College of Nursing through our collaborative institutions. So these are the chances of higher education in Amala College of Nursing.