After the dawn of independence, administrative set ups of all Departments and Organizations were remodeled because of new responsibilities, import of certain best practices, & systems of private enterprises and challenges thrown by Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization. Remodeling of administrative setup of any organization is imperative for better performance, efficiency and target achievements. Despite several recommendations made by Education commissions of Government of India, no major changes were effected at the gross root level in the field of higher education, especially in the professional Engineering and Technological institutions. National Board of Accreditation of All India Council of Technical Education is insisting for better quality and standards of education in the colleges. Each College and the individual branches are asked to have a Vision and Mission policies declared, enshrined displayed on its website, brochures, prospectus. Naturally all Colleges are declaring their vision and mission policies with mind blowing choosy words and phrases, but in practice they are doing little for the fulfillment of those noble ideas. A very few institutions like I.I.T’s, N.I.T’s, Deemed Universities, Autonomous colleges having statutory academic, administrative, financial autonomy, are raising to the expectations of the public and doing their best to fulfill their declared purposes. Of late, the State and Central Governments are gradually with drawing from their basic responsibility of providing good quality.
Education to all sections of the society and private enterprise is occupying that space resulting in the mushroom growth of Technical Institutions in almost all the states especially in South India. These Institutions are with many deficiencies in terms of infrastructure, man power, equipment and producing half backed products resulting in the increase of unemployment of qualified technical graduates leading to wastage of technical trained man power at the national level. In Andhra Pradesh alone, nearly one lakh engineering graduates are coming out of the portals of colleges and nearly 70% of them are not employable, for want of skill sets required by Multi Nation companies. Hence, a heavy responsibility is thrust upon these Institutions and a number of new tasks are to be handled by these colleges for which a new administrative setup is to be created to enable these colleges to play a positive role in shaping the destinies of generations of students in particular and nation at large. The crux of any college is teaching and learning process, but this is being greatly affected by the lack of adequate number of qualified faculty. The problem is further aggravated by the horizontal and quantitative expansion of colleges and increased intake of students especially in IT. The indiscriminate conversion of seats of basic engineering branches in to IT further worsened the situation. The exodus of IT faculty to green pastures of higher package either to software jobs or offers of other college managements increased the attrition rate of faculty.
Special care is to be taken for students hailing from socially disadvantaged sections who got admission into colleges because of reservation policy. The problems of rich and poor divide, rural and urban divide, and digital divide shall be addressed tactfully as they are sensitive areas of human relationships. The number of girl students on the campus is increasing and it poses certain girl specific problems. Admission of foreign students became a thrust area as the seats given to them are in addition to the sanctioned strength fetching more income to the college managements. Presence of foreign students on college campuses involves some more problems to the authorities in terms of their security, their food and general habits like drinking and smoking, festivals and other cultural gaps. The present generation of students is smarter, tech savvy, more communicative, knowledgeable, and independent and they will not compromise themselves to substandard instruction in the colleges. The teaching provided by the B.E and B.Tech graduates, one or two year seniors to the students, could not get the attention and respect of the taught. To fulfill the norms of AICTE, University and Government, the Managements have to raise more funds for providing proper infrastructure, labs, costly equipments etc. This pressure on the managements is creating many other problems like unethical practices of wanton neglect of student attendance to all classes, deliberately resorting to all kinds of malpractices in the conduct of examinations.
The student behavior patterns are being influenced by many factors like print and electronic media, aping the west and many other ugly trends are emerging in the relationships between the students and teachers. The family and societal bonds are loosening due to the breaking of joint family system and emergence of micro families with small family norm. Weakening of the family grip over the youngsters is resulting in the growth of extremist, anti social and fundamentalist tendencies on the campuses. The uncivilized ragging trends, the disciplinary problems posed by the students of neo-rich families and deprived sections are to be tackled with grit and tact by the college administration. The vicarious pleasure derived by senior students indulging in ragging the juniors on & off campus especially in hostels required more vigilance and persistent monitoring. The provisions of Anti Raging Act and judicial pronouncements on the subject puts the college authorities in a precarious position demanding very sensitive, coherent and firm steps to curb this heinous practice of ragging . This casts more responsibility on the college administration.
The expectations of MNCs, bulk job providers in campus placement, are thrusting new responsibilities like pre-placement training, students development programmes , personality development programmes. It involves good rapprochement with MNCs, sensitizing the students about eligibility conditions for campus placements, career guidance, selection process of different companies etc.
The placement rate in the college became a very important parameter in choosing the college / branch by the students / parents. Hence more emphasis is being laid on placement and training by all colleges. It also involves outsourcing the trainers, identifying and imparting the skill sets required by the industry with a special care for communication and soft skills especially for the students belonging to mother tongue medium, rural background and first generation. Strengthening the domain knowledge with absolute clarity on fundamentals, concepts and definitions of subjects is a must for placement. This requires a special effort. Arranging life transforming, attitude changing personality development programmes, mock written tests, Group discussions and interviews require expert approach for better results by a full time, qualified and experienced Training and Placement Head.
Most of the Engineering colleges do not have hostels for students and quarters for staff on the campus. These colleges are located at distant places as the extent of land required for locating colleges is available at the out skirts only. This is necessitating adequate facilities for safe transport for staff and students. The fleet of buses, maintenance and daily operations require a good deal of financial and administrative planning and execution which involves separate machinery. In the scenario of increased crime and violence on the campus and accident rate on roads , several new initiatives are to be taken for the safe and comfortable travel of both staff and students.
To minimize backlogs to increase the number of eligible students for placement, a regular plan to hold remedial classes outside the timetable and also on public holidays shall be launched and effectively implemented. This warrants separate setup of expert manpower both in terms of faculty and supporting staff. Due to home bell syndrome it is difficult to hold the students for such remedial classes after regular periods. This is leading to under utilization of excellent and elaborate infrastructure facilities in the college. The deserting look of the campus after college hours needs greater attention of the authorities to keep the campus vibrant with co/extra curricular activities.
The introduction of performance appraisals like student feedback, self appraisals, HOD and Principal appraisals, connecting them to university examination results of the subjects taught by the faculty, delicate process of communicating the out come of the appraisals to the faculty, demands professional handling. The traditional college administrative setup cannot cope-up and it is not tuned for that.
Fire safety systems and precautions to be taken as per National Building Code in the high rise college buildings cast new responsibility and expertise. The extra security steps to be taken with professional Security systems to safe guard the lives of students and staff, to protect the college properties in these days of violence and terrorism by fundamentalist groups or students groups with ideological cleavages, adds more burden to the present college administration.
The students are being tensed up even for small things such as stress, tension, worry. The fierce competition for marks, ranks and topper slots among the students is aggravating the situation. The over enthusiastic parental pressure and need less comparison with peers is the root cause for this. Going by the statistics of suicide rates and incidents of campus violence due to unethical behaviour of staff and consequent public wrath, the managements cannot turn Nelson’s eye. They should take some bold steps by providing psychological counseling to the needy This erratic tendency may be due to the feeling of diffidence, loosening of value system, family gripe etc. Hence regular psycho therapy by expert psychologists is invariably necessary.
Majority of the students in the college are living away from their parents and families for the first time. Residing in rented rooms and having food in messes and hostels or preparing food , is encountered with some typical problems and phobia which requires a Mentor/ Proctor. They should be put under the care of a faculty. The proctor is the local guardian and he will care and share the personal, emotional and academic problems of the students. The administration and operations of the college shall be student centric and student friendly. For this a well structured and operated Proctorial system is to be created in every college.
Faculty development programmes are a must in every college for enhancement of class room performance and academic qualification of the faculty. First of all they shall be oriented towards teaching. The fire and passion for teaching in the faculty shall be ignited. Unfortunately there is no opportunity/need of pre entry training for the faculty of technical institutes. Fresh M.Tech, B.tech candidates are recruited as faculty. As they are not familiar with teaching methodology and pedagogy, instructional design and delivery, some incumbents are not performing well in the class. Hence structured and scientific workshops are to be conducted to the newcomers.To make the faculty to improve their qualifications and encourage them in paper presentations/publications, new initiatives are to be taken by the college . Incentive programmes are to be launched with objectivity and transparency.
Research and Consultancy is a vital element in the college demanding not only expertise but also huge funds for costly equipments etc. For Consultancy good deal of relationships and marketing abilities are to be developed. All this involves a new look for administration.
The colleges are eager to develop brand building to their annual, cultural and Tech fests spending huge amounts to the tune of 30 to 40 lakhs secured by way of sponsorships involving unjustifiable loss of thousands of academic man hours of both students and staff. The successful execution of these events require connectivity, networking, organizing abilities, leadership qualities,team work etc. The administration has to hone the above skills and showcase the best of the college during those performances, as the general public adjudges the college by these shows . In the case some colleges, the Managements wantonly chalk out certain programmes and include certain items in their annual events tickling the lower senses of students to get immediate popularity, as the students at that adolescent age easily fell into the trap. Proper care should be taken in working out a nice programme with in the limits of decency and decorum for all such events .
Liasoning with parents, keeping them also in loop regarding their ward’s classroom attendance, shortage, mid and university examination marks, backlogs, placement eligibility, co/extra curricular achievements, academic performance etc is compulsory. The college must be in a position to maintain periodical contact with the parent by way of regular letters, progress reports, phone calls, proctor’s visits to the places of residence of the students. This entails the creation of separate setup with staff possessing necessary skills to deal with parents of all shades, some owning and some disowning responsibility of moulding the future of their wards.
The complex financial transactions of college, starting from fee collection scholarship disbursement and refund, financial assistance to poor students, merit awards, incentives to best attendance, best projects, class toppers, gold medals to university rankers, part time jobs to needy students on the campus, fee concession to staff children, budget preparation, prizes of all types including endowment, short term and long term projects from funding agencies, pay bills, payments to out sourcing agencies dealings with statutory agencies like provident fund, income tax and insurance etc, involves expertise and professional handling. This involves computerization of all transactions for accuracy, retrieval enabling correct decision making by authorities.
It became inevitable to have personnel on the college campus not directly recruited by the college. They belong to outsourcing agencies in the area of security guards, daily wage workers for gardening, cleaning ,sweeping, sanitation , hygiene, canteen, trainers for value added courses. Managing these areas with outsourcing staff involves deft handling. Dealing with these agencies and extracting the expected work from them is a new task of the colleges.
The exams are being conducted in the college stretching for nearly 100 to 125 days in an academic year involving large number of faculty and supporting staff. These exams are to be conducted with all strictness as per the university guidelines . Deploying adequate number of invigilators during the days of academic schedule is a difficult task.
This requires careful planning for equitable distribution of chances and remuneration A new trend of drafting junior faculty, non teaching staff for examination work is creating new problems endangering the confidentiality and credibility of examination branch. People with impeccable character, integrity, and honesty should be asked to head that Branch. Any slackness will send wrong signals to students and the entire edifice of college will collapse.
The administrative structure of a college is to be restructured and expert manpower to handle the complex tasks professionally is to be drafted for creating an excellent synergy to achieve the desired targets. The traditional set up of a Principal, a few HODs, non professional supporting staff cannot raise to the present day expectations.
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