Building World Class Academic Institutions in India

How does one do that ? Only if, to begin with, one knows what really constitutes "World Class"

Till date, the thrust of building world class institutions in our country has been on infrastructure as defined by buildings and labs and conference halls. A pity,  because it has meant that once the granite and glass is in place, it is assumed that we have become World Class !  Clearly,  it is not that simple or straight forward.

This misplaced interpretation of "World Class" has meant that huge funds are sought for or attempted to be raised for catering to "only this aspect of world class" which is one of the reasons for the huge “capitation fees”  and "cash donations" demanded by our colleges from prospective students.  This itself arises because of the kind of weightage “such physical infrastructure and” is given in the evaluation of Institutions for accreditation purposes by the NAAC.

Those of the readers who remember their college calculus will recall that there were several identities where there were “necessary conditions” for it to be true and also “sufficient  conditions”  required to be fulfilled for it to be true.

Similarly,  while infrastructure as referred to above i.e.  buildings, labs, classrooms,   conference halls, hostels are “necessary requirements”  for a  world class academic institution,  they are not “sufficient”  ;  indeed, while these tangible things only give an aura of a world class institution,  they do not capture its essence.  The sufficient conditions to be fulfilled (not in any particular order)  are, et al, 

a)    Fairness and transparency of the admission process

b)    Support (by way of scholarships, grants and assistance-ship) extended to meritorious students of insufficient means

c)    Diversity if students in terms of gender, race, religion

d)    Number of foreign students attracted by the Institution

e)    Quality of faculty, 

f)     Quality and style of teaching, 

g)    Ability of faculty to involve students in their subjects and create an abiding and passionate interest in learning, 

h)    Quality of research work and publications of the faculty

i)      Placement record of the students

j)      Career record of students after 5 years, 10 years and longer

k)    Endowments by past students

l)      Peer and public recognition of faculty – awards, prizes (including National,  International, Nobel  etc.)

m)  Performance of students in extracurricular activities like sports, music, arts, crafts etc.

n)    Administrative efficiency, be it in terms of  ease of admission process, examination administration, timeliness of results declaration, estate maintenance (classrooms, offices, hostels, mess, pubic areas etc.), responsiveness to complaints in any of the above areas, safety in and security of the premises and people living and working there.

Currently India’s rankings on the Best Institutes in Asia or the world make for a rather sad and embarrassing reading. 

Consider the QS University Rankings for 2014.  There are only 6 Indian Institutions in the first 100 in Asia,  with the first entry coming in at a lowly  No. 38 of IIT Delhi and ending with  IIT Guwahati at 95.  See the link  http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2014#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=

In case of QS World University Rankings,  there are only 3 Indian Universities (all IITs)  in the first 300,  with the first entry being IIT Bombay wahy down at  Rank 222, followed by IIT Delhi at 235 and rounded off by IIT Kanpur at 300 !  See the link http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2014#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=

In case of QS World University Rankings by Faculty for Science and Engineering there are only 5 Indian Universities ked by IIT Delhi at No. 46 and rounded off by  IIT Kharagpur at No 87.  See link :   http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/faculty-rankings/engineering-and-technology/2014#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=

Clearly,  we are way behind and,  unless the shortcomings are clearly understood and systematically addressed,  there is no hope in heaven of our improving are rankings and attracting either foreign students and foreign faculty to our Universities.  There is also a very mundane reason for working on improving the quality of our Colleges and Universities – such improvement will  a) stem,  to a significant extent,  the outflow of Indian students to colleges abroad which also means a huge drain on our foreign exchange reserves,   and   b) hopefully, also attract foreign students to our colleges giving a “quality push”  to academic diversity and excellence on our campuses as well as earning us scarce foreign exchange.

An article by Mr. Atanu Dey (see extract below) estimates that close to US $ 13 billion is spent every year, by Indian students going abroad.

India Spends $13,000,000,000 on Education Abroad

March 19, 2008 by Atanu Dey

That’s what a report in the Hindustan Times claims: US $13 billion each year. Figures such as these are unbelievable but I suppose someone must have done the numbers. In any case, I had estimated that number to be around $10 billion a few years ago.

Let’s pause for a moment and figure. $13 billion every year. Or in the last 10 years, about $100 billion. Imagine what you could buy for that money. How about 100 colleges with first class infrastructure with housing, classrooms, labs? Each year India could have an additional capacity for 10,000 college students and in 10 years you could have 100,000 additional capacity. Imagine the multiplier effect of that spending — in construction, in salaries to teaching and non-teaching staff. Imagine the boost to the industry from creating human capital. The imagination boggles at the sheer waste.

Imagine how much infrastructure you could build for $100 billion.

- See more at: http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/03/19/india-spends-13000000000-on-education-abroad/#sthash.OoFrdxOP.dpuf

Just imagine what we can do and how much we can save if we can stem this flow even by 50 %.  While this is a  “money argument”  the fact is that we will also tremendously gain as a nation if our Colleges and Universities can upgrade to international standards. This will mean much better quality of higher learning with all its concomitant and spin-off benefits – better research,  better solutions for our problems be it in areas of technology, IT/Software, Medicine, Law and Social Sciences. 

We, at pratik management,  have embarked on a Project to identify the key drivers that help build and sustain World Class Universities so that these can be shared with and advised to our existing Indian Centres of Higher Learning.  We request all readers of this article, particularly those who are Indians and have studied abroad,  to write to us on what they have perceived to be  “world class characteristics”  of colleges abroad vis-à-vis  their experience in India. 

To help you respond,  we are listing below some areas in which we seek your comments

a)    Pre-admission interaction

b)    Admission Process, per se

c)    Induction / Settling down

d)    Benefits of Student Diversity

e)    Quality of Faculty

f)     Quality of teaching

g)    Style of Teaching

h)    Encouragement to students for creative and innovative thinking

i)  Quality of administration related to examinations, announcement of results, hostel accommodation, maintenance of premises / hostels / cafeteria etc.

j)      Safety and Security on the campus

k)    Support to foreign students and those that have language problems

l)      Help / Assistance provided to students who lag in Class

m)  Facilities for extra – curricular activities on the campus

n)    Medical support on the campus

o)    Overall ambience -  what did you find good and what not so good

p)    Discrimination, if any, experienced by you on account of being a foreigner

q)    Any other issues you would like to highlight

Eagerly awaiting your inputs.

October  23,  2014

Mumbai

What is the objective of Training ?

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Often, it is said, that the objective of training is the development of skills or knowledge. At Pratik Management we hold a different view. According to us, the true and meaningful objective of Training is "changed behaviour". 

What is the use of my knowing something new, be it a new fact or new methodology / new process of doing things or a new behaviour that one should adopt or a new way of looking at some existing facts/situations and then continue to behave in exactly the same way, as I used to, prior to the training ? 

What is the use of my remaining the way I was, despite the inputs I received in the training ? I might as well have not attended the training. It clearly means that the training has not made any difference, even though I may have accumulated a lot of new and "useful" knowledge. 

If the above formulation is accepted as valid, then it suggests that trainers should focus less on the volume of data, articles and course material they throw at their participants and more on whether they can strike a chord with the "thought -process" of their participants to induce "change in behaviour".

This calls for giving more time for training, not less, so that every participant can be individually spoken to, each doubt raised is freely discussed and debated before being decided upon and thus the desired change is induced by persuasion, not diktat.

It also means not having too many "different" topics crammed into one training session -- the faculty cannot do justice to it and the participants find it impossible to absorb so many new ideas and concepts. So while the HR department can safely tick its box on "this topic also covered" learning hardly happens, forget any changed behaviour.

Further, this acceptance of the "objective of training" automatically suggests how “training effectiveness” should be measured – viz., by measuring or observing the change in behaviour of the participants, in the desired direction, after some reasonable interval has elapsed after the conclusion of the training programme. 

I would like to add that while I have used the phrase “changed behaviour”, the context in which I am saying this also envelops “changed attitude” e.g. be it attitude towards safety practices, attitude towards punctuality and timeliness, attitude towards customer, attitude towards irate customers, attitude towards irritating customers, attitude towards irresponsible customers, attitude towards irascible customers and suchlike. (Also read, by substituting customers with vendors, colleagues, bosses and subordinates !)

The above pre-supposes,  which unfortunately often does not happen,  that after a participant returns from training there is a structured  "enquiry into" and  "follow-up of"   their learning by the concerned person(s) in their organisation.  What does this follow-up mean ?  It means that on return,  someone (maybe his boss or the HR Head) invites him for a discussion and asks him the following questions :

i)   How was your training ?

ii)  Was there anything new you learnt ?
iii) How do you see the learning helping you, personally ?
iv) Can some of your learning be applied in your department or elsewhere in the organisation ?
v)  Is there any help you want from us to anchor the desired change in your self ? (e.g. free time, access to some books or library  etc.)
vi) Is there some help you want from us to implement  "some of your learning"  in the organisation (e.g. a circular to be issued or some age-old practice to be modified or dropped altogether or some form (or its format) changed, etc.
vii) Do you need to go to any follow-up programme
viii) How would you like your "personal attempt at change"  or your effort at changing the existing practices in the organisation to be supported and evaluated ?

Let readers of this article honestly ask themselves as to how many time have they, sincerely, held the above discussion and actually supported the participant of a recently concluded training programme to implement his/her learning.

The unfortunate truth is that when people return from training,  the most common response is "Oh ! So you are back ?  Good, we have so much work pending. Will you quickly attend to  a, b or c and get back to me ?  We are already way behind because you were away on training !"   

The  result is that the participant has hardly any time to reflect on his/her learning,  forget her trying to actually implement it.  Even more tragic is that he/she gets a clear message that what she has learnt or un-learnt at the training programme is of no or little interest to his boss or the organisation and he/she should not spend too much time on the same.

Hence, may I suggest the following steps while deciding on training inputs :

a) What is the knowledge / skill that we wish to enhance ? This is particularly true where "technical" skills have to be imparted/reinforced in any function - manufacturing or otherwise.

b) At the same time, be particular to also clearly spell out what are the necessary attitudinal and behavioural skills that are a must for the "technical skills" to yield full benefits. For example, I learn about how to "operate a fire extinguisher" but since I do not really care for safety, I store a lot of goods and material in front of the fire extinguisher so that in times of need it is not easily accessible, sometimes not even visible ! Hence, I need to fundamentally change my "attitude to safety" before I can put my knowledge of safety to good use.

c) In situations where "technical skill is not the issue" and you are specifically and only targeting "behavioural change" e.g. timeliness, deadline respect, customer friendliness, waste awareness and reduction etc. design your training curricula and delivery so that it encourages adoption of the above traits and highlights its concomitant benefits.

Further, since you desire to see the above changes happening, it now becomes easy to design or conceive "measures" to assess whether the above behavioural changes are happening and, in that sense, truly gauge the "effectiveness" of that training intervention.

d) Design a structured and mandatory  "de-briefing" session with all people who return from training programmes to understand their learning,  to enquire about the support they require to anchor that learning either for themselves or for the organisation and then,  pro-actively support such "change attempts"  so that the participant and the organisation can actually benefit from the inputs of that training.

All in all, this calls for tremendous effort in design, delivery, measurement, support and adoption of "learning at the training"  and then, "re-design" for improvement in every next programme.