Catering Student Enrollment and Retaining Diversity in Higher Education Institutions

The programmes and strategies adopted by higher educational institutions should be directed to satisfy the needs of the students from diverse backgrounds including religious, cultural, linguistic, and geographical diversities. Gender equity and opportunity for differently-abled students should be ensured. A penchant for diversity often creates diversities of standards. In order to balance it and build uniformity, institutions have to deploy strategy to assess the students’ needs in terms of knowledge and skills before the commencement of the programme, the strategies drawn and deployed by the institution to bridge the knowledge gap of the enrolled students to enable them to cope with the programme of their choice, the strategy to sensitize its staff and students on issues such as gender, inclusion, environment etc. The institution also has to identify and respond to special educational/learning needs of advanced learners, and the strategy to collect, analyze and use the data and information on the academic performance of the students at risk of drop out. By providing undergraduate and postgraduate education in Business Management, Computer Applications and Social Work, Srinivas Institute of Management Studies (SIMS), Mangalore has been providing education service in major areas of importance to the society. In this paper, we have analysed the strategies followed by Srinivas Institute of Management Studies, for catering diversity while student enrollment and profile. This include the efforts of the college to ensure publicity and transparency in the admission process, criteria adopted and process of admission, the minimum and maximum percentage of marks for admission at entry level for each of the programmes offered by the college and strategies adopted to increase/improve access for various categories of students