A number of institutions fed on unfair practices have grown into big fat universities. No less, some of the meat exporters in global markets are amongst the richest in India. You must be wondering why am I drawing a parallel as this ! All I want to say is that people do succeed even when you think their standing defies humanity and fair practices.
Most people think education is a business and they run exactly like it. They are not worried how society the world over regards education- social good and no profiteering, and how it ought to be. According to one study, only 5% of HEIs in India are owned by the academics and socially-driven individuals. It is one of the moot cause of the status we are in.
So, If you don’t care for fair, meaningful and transparent practices and priorities and your education institutions are running and galloping, you are thrilled at adding handsome revenue, and you give all credit to your smart ways and admire the team that helps you in your sinister design. But the fact of the matter is that you exactly know what is that which is getting you the revenue. It doesn’t disturb conscious of people whose second nature is just this and they turn thick-skin over a time. However, there are a class of founders who are into the muddy waters by choice; nonetheless want to come out of it. This blog is not for the hardcore unscrupulous but for the introspection of the latter, the ones looking to change the track:-
1. Give your faculty its due. Their teaching load is a critical consideration. Provide your HEIs FSR as deemed by the Regulatory bodies but overall university FSR shouldn’t be poorer than 1:25 and each department with at least one Professor and one Associate Prof. Let your faculty breathe a bit easy and develop while they teach effectively. I see a number of faculty with bulging tummies. They go back home exhausted and hit the bed rather than taking a walk or going to gym or inspire their children in their studies or give their spouse a tight hug. Not to find a reason that there are not enough faculty in the market. The stark fact is that your appetite for a top talent is absent and heavily constrained by the salary considerations. You are also perhaps looking more into your revenue kitty.
2. It augurs well to provide offices for your VC, Registrar, Students’ Admin and Finance Officer on the ground floor of your building, and not on the upper floors. It makes it psychologically and otherwise convenient for students (the first stakeholders) to walk-into these offices to address their academic concerns.
3. Build enabling philosophy n’ environment and let your VCs, Registrars, HODs be accessible to students on a mode of ‘knock n’ enter, unless engaged into meetings.
4. Hope you’re not intimidating your students by some lavish display and monster-sized VC and Registrar offices while students classrooms, and labs struggle for space and the critical equipment, hardware and software. A rough check- are your contemporary labs looking better than university officers’s offices ? If yes, you’re are absolutely on the right target. Working offices are no places to invite a big statement to an outsider to draw an awe or wow. You might instead, end up lowering your professional image before a true academic visiting your office. An old adage- a fool always requires a yet another fool to admire him. So don’t get carried away if someone admired the grandeur of your office. Stay humble and be seen humble. Let offices be as much sized and furnished appropriate to discharging your office functions. Let sitting space in such offices for a meeting of guests be no more than 5 to 7 people at best. For a larger meeting, Institutes should have centrally organised small, medium and big sized smart meeting rooms. This sounds a far more a professional approach.
5. It would be ironical to have “Reception” of a university constructed in a huge space and decorated like a 5 Star hotel reception but not enough space or provision for faculty cabins, students classrooms, labs and workshops. I often see even two diverse discipline workshops housed in one room. How sad seeing faculty offices set up in the open in one line in a room, devoid of faculty cabins !
6. It should not be acceptable to you to have on the one hand, double soft leather luxury chairs in a board room but hard wood or iron desks for students for 6 to 8 hours of continuous sitting.
7. ACs for the Admin block but only fans in the classes.
8. Lab equipment ‘out-dated/primitive’ but fee mapping with the best of institutions. In many institutions, I see a number of classrooms/seminar halls that produce echo and have not enough sound- proofing provided for effective listening to teachers. How can the classrooms be then effective places for teaching-learning?
9. A few faculty under heavy teaching load, not enough time for self-development but salary staying stagnant for years while fee continues to get enhanced year on year .
10. Placing demand for min two SCOPUS research papers but no incentive money to bear even a part of publishing cost.
11. Not enough spending to support faculty and students skills in industry or by industry in own campus to stay current and relevant. Department research labs are missing in nearly 90% of HEIs.
