Professionalism and College Management

Continuing with my views on how management can run the colleges more professionally:

It’s no doubt that allowing private players in the education sector has added a lot of quality and value to education. Needless to say, it has also increased the competition among the players there. Contrarily, this competition has led to ‘education business’ whose primary objective seems to be only making money. Yes, objective of any business is ‘to make money’; but unfortunately people seem to miss its additional clause, ‘legally and ethically’. If this clause is forgotten while running the business especially in the education sector, I think that’s where the system starts failing.

What I expect managements to ensure professionalism in their running of education system:

• Have a long term vision – though it may look like rhetoric, I think that’s where problem lies if you are not sure about where you want your institutes to be in a long term. The sight of the brighter, long-term vision and its benefits could be easily lost in the course of making few quick bucks in the short-term (without bothering if it’s legal or not). Such (unfair) practices if any, even small, certainly don’t carry the institutes for long (E.g.  Going for pirated software, showing wrong accounts, too much of penalties to students, decision making based on gossips / here says, etc.)
• My views on achieving immense benefits in the long-term (which I would like to address from 3 different perspectives)

• Infrastructure / systems in the institutes – don’t compromise on its quality. Go for branded, good quality products (e.g. computers, UPS, machinery, etc.). Though it may seem expensive initially, they certainly last longer without causing any maintenance hassles or annoyance to its users. Automate routine work using software systems. There’s absolutely no doubt that it’ll bring in huge, huge amount of benefits (which can’t always be measured in terms of money of course!) Gone are the days of manual, routine task based systems. It definitely proves to be a profitable proposition in the long-term.

• TRUST your people – from whatever I see, here and experience, this aspect majorly seems to be lacking in institutes. If the management doesn’t trust its people, how can it expect its staff to trust the management? The ‘handshake’ seems to be missing or very loose!

Managements also seem to be indifferent with its staff. It looks as if they take it for granted that if they pay the money (salary) regularly, the people will just come and do their work. There is somewhat like master-slave relationship. It appears as if sycophancy (chamcha giri) is prevailing in there. This is leading to a major chasm between these two parties. All such things should go.

Mind that there are very learned, highly qualified and experienced people in there. I think they command a respect even more than a company would give to its employees. Regularly meeting them to listen to their woes and suggestions would certainly take the institute to newer heights. It also makes the staff get ‘more involved’ in the overall system. Any disgruntled staff can spread his / her unhappiness within no time.

• Whether or not the institute goes for any kind of accreditation (like NBA) or certification, I think there should be proper procedures to every process and it should be meticulously documented and followed very strictly (e.g. examination process, attendance process, administration process, etc.) and it should be continuously improved based on feedbacks and suggestions. Though exceptions may be derived from such things the exception itself shouldn’t become the main process! Now there seems to ‘reinventing the wheel’ approach every time when new tasks are taken up. People don’t seem to learn from the past (lack of proper knowledge management). Setting up a proper process framework is the need of the hour.

These are some of the points that if implemented will certainly take the institutes to newer heights. I have not written these blindly by referring here and there to sound like rhetoric; I’ve experienced it personally and have seen the benefits which such long-term plans can bring in.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are certain reflections of my mind while I blogged them. Any resemblance or similarity with any person, institute or event is purely coincidental and unintentional.