Manzil Admissions Reshaped

“Manzil provides anyone the opportunity to become a Manzillion and be responsible for their own learning by taking admission in any class of interest.

As a student, a teacher and a core team member I have experienced this process first-hand and it has made me a responsible and committed learner.”, remarks Vandana.

Manzil has various classes and the classes have their own designed curriculum. Manzil conducts the admission in each class at the end of one cycle of each curriculum. For example, admission to the computer classes are done once in two months while for Film-making and English classes admissions are done once in four months. 

Manzil Admissions before Covid

Earlier the admissions were done through submission of the hard copy of the admission form worth

Admission before Covid

Rs.10/-, which was to be filled by students themselves. As is the culture of Manzil, one finds a learning opportunity everywhere. Students, by filling their own forms, got a chance to learn this important skill with the help of the teachers

Post the receiving of applications, the admission process was conducted on the first Sunday of every Month.

The process began at 4PM and no candidates were allowed past that time for admission. The process lasted for around 2 hours where Students got the opportunity to know more about Manzil, how it came to be, its ideology, what all they can learn and even interact with teachers and coordinators of different subjects.

Shifting from Offline to Online after Covid

The nationwide lockdown was instituted in late March 2020, which brought a certain set of challenges to how Manzil conducted it’s admission process and so it decided to conduct it’s admissions process on calls. Teachers used to call everyone one by one. As the admission respondents could not be taken into one big conference call, teachers from different subjects had to split up and induct batches of 5-6 students together. This process was followed for 2-3 Months until June 2020.

Streamlining the Online process

The above process was quite time taking and many a times students wouldn’t pick up the call so it had to be streamlined leveraging technology and tools such as zoom and google meet and leveraging functionalities such as screen sharing, whiteboard, hand raise etc. The conference call which was conducted via a phone call was now transferred to Zoom, wherein we could communicate with all applicants at once. 

The admission process now begins with the release of Application notice, along with the google form for application. This notice is usually released 1 week prior to the admission date, which still remains the first Sunday of each month. To maintain its culture to teach the students by filling up the form, we have a team of form checkers prior to the admission till the admission day. 

Admission after Covid

On the admission day, the process begins at 4:00 Pm, with the last entry being allowed at 4:30 PM. During 4:00-4:30, participants who have joined early have an opportunity to interact with Manzil core members and get to know them better. Once everyone has been admitted, participants are shown a short-animated video which explains the origins of Manzil, what it stands for and how it works. We further showcase a small presentation which introduces them to the Manzil core team and their responsibilities. Individual teachers can share subject wise orientation links with the students, which the students can attend if they wish to join that particular subject. All this is done online with great ease. By making the admission process, core team members learned various technical skills and used creativity to solve hindrances if occurred. 

Thus, by the use of technology we have been able to admit and collect student data digitally which was also a concern before. Now anyone with mobile and internet access across the world can enroll and attend Manzil’s classes unlike before when travelling used to be a big issue and students were limited to only nearby locations.

Written by Vandana (Core Team and Newsletter Member)

Vaibhav Sharma ( Manzil Volunteer)