Guidelines for the

Community Service
Project

AP STATE COUNCIL OF HIGHER EDUCATION

(A Statutory body of the Government of Andhra Pradesh)
 CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Objectives

3. Implementation of Community Service Project

4. Procedure

5. Expected outcomes

6. Time frame for the community service project

7. Assessment methodology for community service project

8. Model of the project report

9. Suggestive list of programmes under community service project

10. Complimenting the community service project the students may be involved to take
up some awareness campaigns on social issues/special groups.
 COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT
……Experiential learning through community engagement

1. INTRODUCTION
 Community Service Project is an experiential learning strategy that integrates
meaningful community service with instruction, participation, learning and community
development
 Community Service Project involves students in community development and
service activities and applies the experience to personal and academic development.
 Community Service Project is meant to link the community with the college for
mutual benefit. The community will be benefited with the focused contribution of the
college students for the village/ local development. The college finds an opportunity to
develop social sensibility and responsibility among students and also emerge as a
socially responsible institution.

2. OBJECTIVES
Community Service Project should be an integral part of the curriculum, as a part of the 2
months of Summer Internships / Apprenticeships / On the Job Training, whenever there is
an exigency when students cannot pursue their summer internships. The specific
objectives are;
 To sensitize the students to the living conditions of the people who are around them,
 To help students to realize the stark realities of the society.
 To bring about an attitudinal change in the students and help them to develop societal
consciousness, sensibility, responsibility and accountability
 To make students aware of their inner strength and help them to find new
/out of box solutions to the social problems.
 To make students socially responsible citizens who are sensitive to the needs of the
disadvantaged sections.
 To help students to initiate developmental activities in the community in coordination
with public and government authorities.
 To develop a holistic life perspective among the students by making them study
culture, traditions, habits, lifestyles, resource utilization, wastages and its
management, social problems, public administration system and the roles and
responsibilities of different persons across different social systems.
 3. IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT

 Every student should put in a minimum of 180 hours for the Community Service Project
during the summer vacation.
 Each class/section should be assigned with a mentor.
 The mentor should be a faculty member. Incentive could be given to the faculty
mentors in terms of Academic Performance Indicators (API) scores. Or could even be
made a compulsory in the service conditions laid down at the time of appointment.
 4 Credits to be allocated for Community Service Project within the Choice Based Credit
System (CBCS).
 The 180 hours of Community Service Project could be done in differentareas.
 Specific Departments could concentrate on their major areas of concern. For
example, Dept. of Computer Science can take up activities related to Computer Literacy
to different sections of people like - youth, women, house-wives, etc… Dept. of Zoology
or other life sciences departments could concentrate on health awareness, blood
groupings, awareness on blood donation or organ donation, etc. Dept. of Mathematics
and Statistics could dwell upon empowering the youth with analytical skills, Dept. of
Commerce could create awareness on GST or Income Tax Returns or other taxes or
consumerism.
 Sky will be the limit for organizing different programmes, provided the faculties are
sufficiently motivated.
 A log book has to be maintained by each of the student, where the activities
undertaken/involved to be recorded.
 The log book has to be countersigned by the concerned mentor/facultyincharge.
 Evaluation to be done based on the active participation of the student and grade could
be awarded by the mentor/faculty member.
 The final evaluation to be reflected in the grade memo of the student.
 The Community Service Project should be different from the regular programmes of
NSS/NCC/Green Corps/Red Ribbon Club, etc.
 Minor project report should be submitted by each student. An internal Viva shall also be
conducted by a committee constituted by the principal of the college.
 Award of marks shall be made as per the guidelines of Internship/apprentice/ on the
job training

4. PROCEDURE
 A group of students or even a single student could be assigned for a particular
habitation or village or municipal ward, as far as possible, in the near vicinity of their
place of stay, so as to enable them to commute from their residence and return back by
evening or so.
 The Community Service Project is a twofold one –
o First, the student/s could conduct a survey of the habitation, if necessary, in
terms of their own domain or subject area. For ex., a student of Arts will focus
on socio-economic conditions, social survey and about the Government’s social
security schemes. A student of Sciences could take up a survey on the health
and hygiene conditions of that habitation, similarly, with other subject areas
too. Or it can even be a general survey, incorporating all the different areas. A
common survey format could be designed. This should not be viewed as a
duplication of work by the Village or Ward volunteers; rather, it could be
another primary source of data.
o Secondly, the student/s could take up a project work related to their domain or
subject area.
 The different areas, could be like –
o Agriculture
o Health
o Marketing and Cooperation
o Animal Husbandry
o Horticulture
o Fisheries
o Sericulture
o Revenue and Survey
o Natural Disaster Management
o Irrigation
o Law & Order
o Excise and Prohibition
o Mines and Geology
o Energy
A specific example,
 A student of [Link] (BZC) will first conduct a survey of his/her habitation which could
be related to a specific area or in a comprehensive way of socio- economic conditions,
covering all the areas listed above.
or
 Could conduct an awareness programme on Health and Hygiene or in Organic
Farming or in Fisheries or in advocating prohibition of liquor or about renewable
energy, or any other activity in an area as per his/her aptitude and the problems
identified in the socioeconomic survey conducted.
 A project work shall be done on a particular topic related to his/her domain subject
area.
 5. EXPECTED OUTCOMES

BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT TO STUDENTS

Learning Outcomes
 Positive impact on students’ academic learning
 Improves students’ ability to apply what they have learned in “the real world”
 Positive impact on academic outcomes such as demonstrated complexity of
understanding, problem analysis, problem-solving, critical thinking, and cognitive
development
 Improved ability to understand complexity and ambiguity
Personal Outcomes
 Greater sense of personal efficacy, personal identity, spiritual growth, andmoral
development
 Greater interpersonal development, particularly the ability to work well withothers,
and build leadership and communication skills
Social Outcomes
 Reduced stereotypes and greater inter-cultural understanding
 Improved social responsibility and citizenship skills
 Greater involvement in community service after graduation
Career Development
 Connections with professionals and community members for learning andcareer
opportunities
 Greater academic learning, leadership skills, and personal efficacy can leadto
greater opportunity
Relationship with the Institution
 Stronger relationships with faculty
 Greater satisfaction with college
 Improved graduation rates
BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT TO FACULTY MEMBERS
 Satisfaction with the quality of student learning
 New avenues for research and publication via new relationships betweenfaculty and
community
 Providing networking opportunities with engaged faculty in other disciplinesor
institutions
 A stronger commitment to one’s research
BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT TO COLLEGES AND
UNIVERSITIES
 Improved institutional commitment
 Improved student retention
 Enhanced community relations

BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT TO COMMUNITY

 Satisfaction with student participation
 Valuable human resources needed to achieve community goals
 New energy, enthusiasm and perspectives applied to community work
 Enhanced community-university relations.

ROLE OF STUDENTS:
 Students may not have the expertise to conduct all the programmes on their own. The
students then can play a facilitator role and conduct the programmes involving
Governmental agencies, Non-Governmental agencies or faculties of their college, etc.
 For conducting special camps like Health related, they will be coordinating with the
Governmental agencies.
 As and when required the College faculty themselves act as Resource Persons.
 Students can work in close association with Non-Governmental Organizations like Lions
Club, Rotary Club, etc or with any NGO actively working in that habitation.
 And also with the Governmental Departments. If the programme is rolled out, the
District Administration could be roped in for the successful deployment of the
programme.
 An in-house training and induction programme could be arranged for the faculty and
participating students, to expose them to the methodology of Service Learning.
 6. TIME FRAME FOR THE COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT

Duration: 8 weeks

Schedule:
Socio-Economic Survey of the Village/Habitation (Two weeks): A group of students
under the guidance of faculty mentors conduct a Socioeconomic Survey of the
Village/habitation. They will interact with people to acquire basic knowledge on the project
chosen for study and conduct the survey using a structured questionnaire.
Community awareness campaign (one week): The students group takes up community
awareness campaigns based on the above survey conducted byidentifying the problems or
vulnerable issues. They may also conduct house to house campaign on socially relevant
theme. Ex: Government welfare programs, health care, consumer protection, food
adulteration, digital transactions,information sources, etc.
Main Project (4 weeks): A group of students choose a topic related to their subject area
and conduct a Project which includes, Data collection, interviews, internship in any select
unit or department.
Report preparation (one week): The student should submit a project report duly signed
by the mentor.

7. ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECTLearning

outcomes:
 To facilitate an understanding of the issues that confronts the vulnerable /
marginalized sections of the society.
 To initiate team processes with the student groups for societal change.
 To provide students an opportunity to familiarize themselves with urban /rural
community they live in.
 To enable students to engage in the development of the community.
 To plan activities based on the focused groups.\
 To know the ways of transforming the society through systematic
programme implementation.

The following is the evaluation methodology for awarding marks/grades.

There will be only internal evaluation for this internship. Each faculty member is to be
assigned with 10 t0 15 students depending upon availability of the
faculty members. The faculty member will act as a faculty-mentor for the group and is in-
charge for the learning activities of the students and also for the comprehensive and
continuous assessment of the students.

The assessment is to be conducted for 100 marks. The number of credits assigned is 4.
Later as per the present practice the marks are converted into grades and grade points to
include finally in the SGPA and CGPA.

The weightings shall be:

Project Log 20%
Project Implementation 30%
Project report 25%,
Presentation 25%

Each student is required to maintain an individual logbook, where he/she is supposed to

record day to day activities. The project log is assessed on an individual basis, thus
allowing for individual members within groups to be assessed this way. The assessment
will take into consideration the individual student’s involvement in the assigned work.
While grading the student’s performance, using the student’s project log, the following
should be taken into account -
a. The individual student’s effort and commitment.
b. The originality and quality of the work produced by the individual student.
c. The student’s integration and co-operation with the work assigned.
d. The completeness of the logbook.

The assessment for the Community Service Project implementation shall include the
following components and based on the entries of Project Log and Project Report:
a. Orientation to the community development
b. Conducting a baseline assessment of development needs
c. Number and Quality of Awareness Programmes organised on beneficiary programmes
and improvement in quality of life, environment and social consciousness, motivation and
leadership, personality development, etc.
d. Number and Quality of Intervention Programmes (Prevention or promotion programs
that aim to promote behavioural change in defined community contexts to address social
problems) organised.
e. Follow-up Programmes suggested (Referral Services, Bringing Community
Participation)
f. Developing short and mid-term action plans in consultation with localleadership and
local government officers.

The Project Report shall be prepared as per the guidelines given in the ModelProject
Report.

The Project Presentation is to be made by the student after he/she reportsback to

the College. The components for assessment are –
a. assessing the involvement in the project
b. presentation skills
c. final outcome of the project as evinced by the student.
Example:
Name of the Student: X. YY ZZZ
Class & Year of Study II B.A. 2021 - 2022
Registered Number 000000
Assessment Max Marks
Component Marks Secured
1. Project Log 20 15
2. Project 30 20
Implementation
3. Project Report 25 20
4. Presentation 25 20
TOTAL OUT OF 100 100 75

Letter grade Grade Point Credits Credit Point

O (outstanding) 10 2 20
A+ (Excellent) 9 2 18
A (Very Good) 8 2 16
B+ (Good) 7 2 14
B (Above average) 6 2 12
C (Average) 5 2 10
D (Pass) 4 2 8
F (Fail) 0 2 0
Ab (Absent) 0 2 0

In the above example, 75 marks are converted to letter grade / grade point.
Letter grade Grade Point Credits Credit Point
B+ (Good) 7 2 14
8. MODEL OF THE PROJECT REPORT
PART – A

1. Introduction:
A. About the Village / Habitation.
2. Socio-Economic Survey of the Village/Habitation.
A. Data collection using prescribed formats.
3. Problems identified and Analyses of the problems.
4. Short-term and long term action plan for possible solutions for the problems
identified and that could be recommended to the concerned authorities for
implementation.
5. Community awareness programmes conducted w.r.t the problems and theiroutcomes.

PART - B
1. A mini-project work in the related subject w.r.t the habitation/village.
(For ex., a student of Botany may do a project on Organic Farming or Horticulture or
usage of biofertilisers or biopesticides or effect of the inorganic pesticides, etc. A student
of Zoology may do a project on Aquaculture practices or animal husbandry or poultry or
health and hygiene or Blood group analysisor survey on the Hypertension or survey on
the prevalence of diabetes, etc.

PART - C
1. Recommendations and conclusions.
2. References
 9. SUGGESTIVE LIST OF PROGRAMMES UNDER COMMUNITY SERVICEPROJECT
The following the recommended list of projects for BA, [Link], and [Link] programmes. The
lists are not exhaustive and open for additions, deletions and modifications. Colleges are
expected to focus on specific local issues for this kind of projects. The students are expected
to carry out these projects with involvement, commitment, responsibility and
accountability. The mentors of a group of students should take the responsibility of
motivating, facilitating, and guiding the students. They have to interact with local
leadership and peopleand appraise the objectives and benefits of this kind of projects. The
project reports shall be placed in the college website for reference. Systematic, Factual,
methodical and honest reporting shall be ensured.
For Arts Students
1. Village demography
2. Healthcare programmes and their implementation
3. School education
4. Youth engagement
5. Women empowerment
6. Women education
7. Domestic violence
8. Culture, traditions, values and ethics
9. Employment of different sections
10. Status of socially deprived sections
11. Implementation of state development programmes
12. Implementation and impact of welfare schemes
13. Public distribution system
14. Social inclusiveness
15. Village governance
16. Health care system and its effectiveness
17. Information sources and their effectiveness
18. Entertainment media and habits
19. Social problems
20. Family and marriage systems across different social groups
21. Religion profile and their role in social development
22. Communal harmony
23. Innovative methods and practices
24. Village industry
25. Safety and security
26. Migration for employment
27. Infrastructure development
28. Facilities for quality life across different social groups
29. Leadership in family, community and social groups
30. Implementation of central schemes
31. Village development plans
32. Child labour
33. Sex education
34. Atrocities against women
35. Awareness of central government schemes and the level of participation
36. Community engagement programmes and their impact
37. Career orientation of youth
38. Skill development programmes and their impact
39. Alcohol and smoking habits and their impact on families and society
40. Crime rate, law and order and safety needs
41. Quality of Elementary education and accessibility
42. Factors considered for electing public representatives
43. Environment protection
44. Inter religious harmony
45. Treatment of aged persons
46. Sanitation systems
47. Tribal studies
48. Telugu literature and mondalics
49. Awareness of epics among youth and children
50. Anthropological survey
51. Music and dance
52. Performing arts
53. Social evils
For Commerce Students
1. Entreprenuership
2. Agricultural products and marketing
3. Poultry business
4. Dairy business
5. Aquaculture
6. Wage system and Labour Welfare
7. Village industry products and marketing
8. Income and wealth distribution among different sections of the society
9. Entertainment services
10. Communication services
11. Banking services and habits
12. Insurance services and habits
13. Public distribution system
14. Vegetable marketing
15. Savings and Investments
16. Online purchases
17. Digital transactions
18. Use of electrical home appliances
19. Use of electronic home appliances
20. Personal transport
21. Consumer movement
22. Unfair trade practices
23. Food habits
24. Income distribution
25. Wealth distribution
26. Expenditure pattern on different product categories
27. Buying motives
28. Consumer behavior
29. Impact of celebrity advertising
30. Impact of TV on product choices
31. Usage of cell phones
32. Self employed professionals
33. Construction
34. Leisure time management
35. Tourism
36. Leadership
37. Human resource development
38. Local administration
39. Office management in local governing bodies
40. Exports
41. Handicrafts
42. Handlooms
43. Public transport
44. Private transport
45. Cooperative societies
46. Shifts in occupations
47. Debt burden of different sections of the society
48. Time management
49. Dispute resolution systems
50. Commercial crops

For Science Students

1. Water facilities and drinking water availability
2. Health and hygiene
3. Stress levels and coping mechanisms
4. Health intervention programmes
5. Horticulture
6. Herbal plants
7. Botanical survey
8. Zoological survey
9. Marine products
10. Aqua culture
11. Inland fisheries
12. Animals and species
13. Nutrition
14. Traditional health care methods
15. Food habits
16. Air pollution
17. Water pollution
18. Plantation
19. Soil protection
20. Renewable energy
21. Plant diseases
22. Yoga awareness and practice
23. Health care awareness programmes and their impact
24. Use of chemicals on fruits and vegetables
25. Organic farming
26. Crop rotation
27. Floriculture
28. Access to safe drinking water
29. Geographical survey
30. Geological survey
31. Sericulture
32. Study of species
33. Food adulteration
34. Incidence of Diabetes and other chronic diseases
35. Human genetics
36. Blood groups and blood picture

10. COMPLIMENTING THE COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT THESTUDENTS MAY

BE INVOLVED TO TAKE UP SOME AWARENESS
CAMPAIGNS ON SOCIAL ISSUES/SPECIAL GROUPS.

The suggested list of programmes are -Programmes for

School Children
1. Reading Skill Programme (Reading Competition)
2. Preparation of Study Materials for the next class.
3. Personality / Leadership Development
4. Career Guidance for X class students
5. Screening Documentary and other educational films
6. Awareness Programme on Good Touch and Bad Touch (Sexual abuse)
7. Awareness Programme on Socially relevant themes.

Programmes for Women Empowerment

1. Government Guidelines and Policy Guidelines
2. Womens’ Rights
3. Domestic Violence
4. Prevention and Control of Cancer
5. Promotion of Social Entrepreneurship
General Camps
1. General Medical camps
2. Eye Camps
3. Dental Camps
4. Importance of protected drinking water
5. ODF awareness camp
6. Swatch Bharath
7. AIDS awareness camp
8. Anti Plastic Awareness
9. Programmes on Environment
10. Health and Hygiene
11. Hand wash programmes
12. Commemoration and Celebration of important days
Programmes for Youth Empowerment
1. Leadership
2. Anti-alcoholism and Drug addiction
3. Anti-tobacco
4. Awareness on Competitive Examinations
5. Personality Development
Common Programmes
1. Awareness on RTI
2. Health intervention programmes
3. Yoga
4. Tree plantation
5. Programmes in consonance with the Govt. Departments like –
i. Agriculture
ii. Health
iii. Marketing and Cooperation
iv. Animal Husbandry
v. Horticulture
vi. Fisheries
vii. Sericulture
viii. Revenue and Survey
ix. Natural Disaster Management
x. Irrigation
xi. Law & Order
xii. Excise and Prohibition
xiii. Mines and Geology
xiv. Energy