by B.H.S. Thimmappa
Path to Holistic Higher Education
The Indian higher education system in general needs to rapidly evolve to stay relevant to the modern research ecosystem and create individuals capable of independent application of mind. This part of the series focuses on the holistic higher education and management aspects. India can emerge as the major higher education hub in the world, keeping pace with the changing times by setting up new higher education organizations, upgrading the existing centers, establishing excellent education and research infrastructure, expert teaching professionals, and a massive improvement in high-impact teaching to students with divergent educational inclinations. Policies and schemes can create an enabling environment to ensure the availability of high-quality higher education to the new younger generation. By leveraging the latest equipment and technologies, expertise, and collaboration, education providers should provide multiple education services at different levels to a large number of people. As new technologies emerge and breakthrough innovations happen, India will strengthen its position as a global higher education hub. It is essential to encourage private investment in higher education space with proper checks and balances, an internal chain of accountability, an impact assessment study, and quality benchmarks on par with the best in the world. The generation of ideal citizens in large numbers with the ability to think, analyze and research will add to the strength of the country through their valuable contributions, take it to the top position and realize the dream of India as a developed nation. The futuristic higher education system can generate 360-degree holistic persons with the originality of thought, words, and deeds. In addition to developing academic knowledge, practical skills, and mental attitudes, non-academic holistic student development aspects such as local community service, emotional well-being, nourishing cultural values, connecting with nature, and freedom of expression should be balanced in higher education programs. It is necessary to include co-curricular and extra-curricular activities in addition to regular academic activities. The root causes of student unrest, stress, isolation, and trauma in recent years need to be addressed by creating programs that incorporate the above aspects and create a student-centric learning ecosystem with flexibility, mobility, and freedom for the benefit of students and higher educational institutions. The guiding philosophy of the university is to teach the students to be the finest, be the main engine of society, and cherish democracy. Each university has to move up in its academic excellence level through individual and institution-wise contributions in teaching, academic research, research for industry, socially useful productive work, and extensive support to students.
There should be uniform degrees at different levels in different streams throughout India, instead of royal, special, and regular degrees and more employment opportunities should be created in various fields by encouraging industrial establishments to grow. A paradigm shift is also required from pedagogy to andragogy to heutagogy, where we are moving from a system having a sage on the stage to a student-centric approach to learning. As learning is non-linear, it is better to incorporate disciplinary (teaching within academia maintaining boundaries) interdisciplinary (working between more than one discipline), multidisciplinary (working with multiple disciplines, maintaining boundaries), and transdisciplinary (beyond disciplines & involves stakeholders from policy and civil society). The subject experts should involve themselves in content creation and development in the form of lecture notes, educational videos, PPTs, and multimedia presentations. The way forward is to foster a culture of excellence, creativity, innovation, and invention in young learners. Transformational leadership can promote the quality of the higher education ecosystem that builds the socioeconomic and political development of the nation. There is a wide gap between industry requirements and academic curriculum in universities and many corporate companies have their training processes to orient the workforce. The co-curricular and extracurricular activities, employability skills, effective teamwork, and communication skills must be an integral part of the overall personality development and holistic education of young learners in creating sustainable societies. The UGC has formulated a four-year undergraduate program incorporating a flexible choice-based credit system, multiple entry/exit options, and a multidisciplinary approach under the national education policy, NEP 2020. The government should strive to find long-term answers to higher education issues based on the themes of diversity and inclusion as a democratic nation. Academic collaborations between Indian and top-ranking foreign higher education institutes (FHEIs) will be useful to get twinning, joint or dual degrees at an affordable cost. Modern faculty members have to become transformational leaders in the organizational context through idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration through special capacity-building programs. The roles that they play include resource provider, supporter, mentor, coach, change facilitator, motivator, director, and thought leader. Developing an effective team with well-defined individual, group, and task functions would enhance task performance and help in raising the bar and improving the profiles of learners. All efforts must be made to further these initiatives down the line to create human capital toward a sustainable society and become a global knowledge superpower soon. We deserve the best in the world and a great university is a joy to visit creating a good impression of the country. The tests and perceptions of the internal process of higher education organizations play a pivotal role in shaping international perceptions. India must stand for the principles in the higher education system without borders and put more spine into quality aspects loud and clear at all levels.
Managing Multiple Challenges
Sustained efforts are required in managing multiple challenges, including unclear or conflicting task priorities, information overload, process dependencies, overlapping resources, and competing deadlines. If not managed well by visionary academic leadership the consequences of decreased outputs have to be managed by damage control measures and relevant course correction. There should be proper coordination and cooperation among the different stakeholders-investors, partners, employees, learners, and the state or central government on the vision, mission, and objectives of the higher educational institutes. Lean management involving continuous improvement and a long-term approach to work on all aspects of admissions and registration, course/program design, teaching-learning interactions, student feedback/customer satisfaction, and research projects can elevate the institutes to the next level. It is necessary to reduce the time, money, and effort wasted on non-value-added tasks. We have to frame intended learning outcomes depending on the future needs of national competencies and employment markets at the course and program levels and these should be aligned with the vision, mission, and objectives of the institute and the university. Proper planning in an organization with control and balances in the knowledge-sharing platform with the incorporation of insights obtained from higher education research would certainly help in managing multiple challenges. It is also essential to enhance the civic sense, and social justice, and reduce crime rates in India, especially in megacities including the capital Delhi through higher education in different streams. The various policies, procedures, rules, and regulations related to academic (enrolment, grading, attendance, research, patent, incubation, leave, examination, placement, conference) and administrative (service, media, website, purchase, payroll, recruitment, gender equality, waste disposal) matters should be declared on the website of the respective universities to reduce conflicts and resulting attrition rates and amplify educational benefits. Ad hoc policies to run the system would do greater damage to the education ecosystem and it may contribute to the instability in the smooth functioning of the organization. A faculty appraisal system with appropriate academic, administrative, and research parameters must be in place to promote deserving faculty with incentives based on their performance level. All good performance management systems (PMS) have defined roles and responsibilities, specific objectives as targets, measures and indicators of performance, feedback protocols, positive reinforcement, dialogues to motivation for improvement, and distribution of work rewards. Nurturing an effective workplace via strengthening the leadership qualities within the organization, motivating colleagues to higher-order achievements, creating a more positive academic environment for excellence, and enhancing the capability to manage and resolve interpersonal dynamics and conflicts among faculty members are equally important. Universities should include undergraduate-level socially useful mandatory courses such as ‘creativity and entrepreneurship’ ‘corruption and its control’, ‘essentials of health education’ to help students develop an entrepreneurial mindset and create innovative solutions for real-world problems, become aware of deep-rooted corruption issues and gain general health awareness to be physically and mentally fit individuals. We must select more substance than style/spectacle/image despite several structural, procedural, and mindset issues to serve as a higher education leader.
We have to attract academically talented people with knowledge, skills, and abilities to the noble profession of teaching by providing higher pay scales and research incentives in the form of seed money to start immediate research activities. Top management should support the various student club activities such as journal club of science, photography club, fine arts club, literary club, music/dance/drama club, voluntary organization, film/video club, and annual institute magazine/academic annual report as a souvenir for the outgoing batch of students. The grievance cell to receive complaints from students and faculty and address these through committee members regularly should be practiced. Political interference in the management of higher education compromises the autonomy of higher education institutions. The students must be informed about the policies, regulations, organizational structures, administrative processes, and academic programs in the form of detailed information brochures well in advance to enable the students to take informed decisions. Low gross enrolment ratio, substandard quality, poor educational infrastructure, faculty shortage, outdated curriculum, inadequate research, international collaborations, lack of multidisciplinary approach, accreditation, and regulatory issues in higher education have to be tackled by the top management through transparency, accountability, and professionalism. The faculty members need to become familiar with the latest developments in specific fields and their adoption in an industrial set-up. The university can arrange faculty development programs by inviting industry experts for guest lectures or arranging hands-on workshops as a part of industry-institute interactions. Academic leaders motivate, inspire, direct, and lead the faculty members to achieve the vision or shared objectives of the institute/university. Setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) performance goals, monitoring through check-ins and feedback, reviewing goal completion, and rating employees and rewarding them form active components in the performance management cycle. Radical reforms in the higher education system, drive a culture of excellence, innovation with integrity, training and placement, and building employability, and entrepreneurship skills, which are extremely important aspects of promoting societal well-being. The human resource management department must conduct an internal academic audit, board of studies (BoS), external academic audit, and internal quality control (IQC) meetings at least twice during the academic year. An organized approach to complex problem-solving and decision-making in strategic planning involves the following steps; i) define the problem ii) examine all potential causes of the problem iii) identify all alternatives to resolve the problem iv) carefully select the best approach v) implement the best alternative vi) monitor implementation of the plan, and vii) verify if the problem has been resolved or not.
Organizational change is desirable and inevitable to transform and prosper. To accomplish significant change we must follow certain steps, including creating an urgency of need, forming a powerful coalition, convincing a vision for change, communicating the vision, removing the obstacles, getting short-term success, continuing building momentum, and supporting change to become part of the culture. Primary internal stakeholders such as the administrators, faculty members, and students who are directly impacted by the higher education system the most can be considered the heart and soul of the system. External stakeholders like government officials, education policymakers, parents, and other community members (taxpayers, business community, philanthropists) have an interest in the success of the educational system. Many challenges and problems faced by higher education because of global competition, massification, diversification, marketization, and advances in technology have to be managed well to obtain future success from different perspectives. There should be an online feedback mechanism for the organization responsible for the maintenance of standards in university education in India to provide public evaluation, discussion, comments, and suggestions to enable continuous improvement to become a more mature system through a lifelong learning process. Disruption in higher education because of national/global competition, alternatives to campus education (online/blended), and standardization should make us establish international-level facilities. This aspect should lead to the following improvements; i) future-driven development (FDD) ii) value-added processes (VAP) business model iii) emphasizes quality at all steps iv) delivers tangible working results at all stages v) provides accurate and meaningful progress vi) deliver quality content to students vii) individual assistance in skill development viii) true testing and assessment and ix) disruptive innovation in higher education. Visionary leadership for higher education transformation should learn from the best global lessons from the past, look into the present status, set clear targets to perform better, draw up a vision map, chart the path to be taken in the short/medium/long-term, sustain the levels of enthusiasm and interest, and cater to the specific academic/scientific segment. We must go for radical reforms in the higher education sector with liberal regulations and regulatory best practices, awaken latent intellectual talent and retain enough talent in India, spend public money on new research activities, increase innovation, creativity, and socially useful productive work, and conduct a statistical analysis of R & D spending and growth. In streamlining quality management, it is better to follow the six sigma methodology involving five principles represented by a DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) acronym. The total quality management process involves the following steps; define the problem with the product/process/system, measure performance data collection, analyze the data to establish the root cause, improve by eliminating the root causes, and control the new process to attain the ultimate goals. A set of requirements for quality improvement includes basic quality assurance approaches like accreditation, assessment, and audit, maintaining consistency and aiming at excellence, use of expertise, skills, technology, and culture to create learner value, and continuous improvement in the teaching-learning process. If we bring graduate attributes, accessibility, affordability, and accountability into the higher education system, thinking of the bigger picture of creating an innovative university is not far away. To realize the great Indian dream, the Indian government should propel selected universities to the top of the global rankings to establish India as a global force. Let us make India an attractive global learning destination by providing international quality holistic and multidisciplinary higher education in every institution through a massive transformation and accelerated growth in the education industry. Jai Uccha Shiksha, Jai Vignan, Jai Anusandhan!
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About the Author:
B.H.S. Thimmappa is a writer from Udupi, India