University Bridge Program: Innovation at the Grass Roots of Learning in Higher Education

In India universities and colleges typically assume that students entering their first year of higher education are sufficiently prepared to be successful in college level studies. However, many studies have conclusively shown that most students perform at significantly lower grade level during graduate courses compared to their actual grade in 12^th standard. Students from various geographical locations, boards of study, economical back grounds and medium of study will take admission to university courses. Faculty teaching university courses will experience heterogeneous student groups in terms of proficiency in pre-requistes for university courses. We had designed a unique program at RK University (RKU) to overcome the above challenges, which is discussed in this paper. This program has achieved great success in improving students learning in university undergraduate and post graduate courses to get head start on their academic goals. In this paper, we will explore the design and implementation of University Bridge Program (UBP) at RKU.