President		:	Mr. P.S.A.PALLAK LEBBE
				
Secretary       	:	Mr. T.E.S.FATHU RABBANI
				
Treasurer       	:	Mr. H.M.SHAIK ABDUL CADER
				
Member           	:	Mr. K.A.MEERAN MOHIDEEN
                                Mr. W.S. SYED ABDUR RAHMAN 
                                Mr. M.K.M. MOHAMED NAZAR
				Mr. L.K.M.A. MUHAMMAD NAWAB HUSSAIN                                
                                

Ex.Officio Member       :	Dr. M.MOHAMED SATHIK (Principal)

In order to serve as a beacon of light for eradicating the educational backwardness and consquently ushering in an intellectual renaissance among the Muslims of the Tirunelveli region.

The Sadakathullah Appa College was started in 1971 and run by Sadakathullah Appa Educational Society. This new college began to bud before giant institutions more than a century old, in Palayamkottai, the Oxford of the South. Today this college offers 9 Under-Graduate Courses, 3 Post-Graduate Courses, and Certificate and Diploma Courses in Computer Sciences and Arabic. The College has produced, apart from many responsible and distinguished citizens.

BISMILLAHIRRAHMANIR RAHEEM. I commence in the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Compassionate. May Peace and Blessings be bestowed on all. ASSALAMU ALAIKUM RAHMATHULLAHI WA BARAKATHUHU.

Madam Vice Chancellor, most distinguished and erudite Scholars on the dais, members of the Academia and the Intelligentsia, invited guests, staff and students. I thank you for coming and welcome you all to this launching programme of the Autonomy Status of Sadakathullah Appa College.

Modern Education in India , to a large extent, is a legacy of the erstwhile British Raj. They, in their own enlightened way, brought in what is now called the modern, secular education. They endowed us with primary and high school system, and at the tertiary lever of higher learning, they found the Universities and Colleges. The Universities of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta were started way back in 1857, with their respective affiliated Colleges.

This worked well in the Raj era when the number of such institutions was small, and education was only for the chosen few. In the post-independent era, there has been an exponential increase in the number of institutions at the tertiary level, and their number has now crossed the 300+ mark. These include some deemed Universities (such as the IITs), some unitary and residential Universities (such as Annamalai), some with limited constituents (as Delhi University ), but many are functioning with a spate of affiliated colleges.

But the structure of collegiate education remained rigid, static with the past colonial mentality, with no freedom of thought and expression for the teaching fraternity, with the result that these colleges simply created rote learning and "gulp and vomit" system of examinations, and a vast army of so-called graduates, who after sitting for their final exams and leaving college, have no sense of what they learnt and without any set of skills or specific expertise. This even led, in the late eighties, to our late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi saying that our students learnt what is there to be learnt only after they left colleges and universities.

The Universities did not have any effective system for modernising or updating the curriculum, as the Board of Studies became a routine affair, and the Colleges did not have any academic freedom to introduce any such changes on their own initiative.

The Education Commission in 1964-66 pointed out that the exercise of academic freedom is a crucial requirement for the development and the enrichment of the intellectual climate in our country. With this the Commission recommended College Autonomy, which in essence, is the instrument for creating and promoting academic excellence.

The University Grants Commission actively supports this concept of autonomy by generous grants. Its document on the Tenth Plan profile on higher education, states that "The only safe and better way to improve the quality of undergraduate education is to delink colleges from the affiliating structure. Colleges with academic and operative freedom are doing better and have more credibility. The financial support to such colleges boosts the concept of autonomy. It is proposed to increase the number of autonomous colleges to spread the culture of autonomy, and the target is to make 10 percent of eligible colleges autonomous by the end of the Tenth Plan."

In our quest for achieving academic excellence, we, at Sadakathullah Appa College , have been striving for autonomous status for several years. ALHAMDU LILLAH (Praise be God Almighty), we have reached that milestone now.

I sincerely and profoundly thank Manonmaniam Sunderanar University , more specially its learned Vice Chancellor, Dr. Cynthia Pandian, and the Members of the Syndicate who have granted us the Status of Autonomy, on the basis of the University Grants Commission�s recommendations.

This has delinked us from the rigid structure of academic syllabi of the university, though not with the university itself, the relationship with which we cherish and would continue to have.

And with this launching of the Autonomous Status, we in Sadakathullah Appa College, its Management, Principal, Faculties and Staff, propose, INSHA ALLAH (God Willing), to exercise this freedom in consonance with the objectives formulated by the National Policy of Education (1986-92), in the following manner.

We would determine and prescribe our own courses of study and syllabi, restructure and redesign the courses to suit the needs of the local community;

We propose to have the freedom to have rules for admission, in line with the reservation policy of the Government;

We would evolve the methods of assessment of students� learning, understanding and performance, conduct of examinations and notification of the results;

We intend using the tools of modern education technology to achieve higher standards and greater creativity;

We would promote healthy practices such as community service, extension activities, projects for the benefit of the society at large, many new and innovative neighbourhood programmes, and inculcate in our students the needs of community awareness and positive participation.

This we intend, with the help and guidance of the Almighty, to pursue in the excellence of education, learning and wisdom, reflecting the motto of our College, "My Lord, Vouchsafe me Wisdom", RABBI HABLEE HUKMAH.

I conclude my address with the final invocation, "All Praise Be to Almighty Allah, Lord of the Worlds", AAKHIR DHA`WA ANA ANILHAMDHU LILLAHI RABBIL-AALAMEEN. ASSALAMU ALAIKUM.