Column

Continued from last week

Let me take the discussion forward from last week and share some ways in which we can nurture institutions of higher learning to blend three goals of expansion, inclusion and excellence.

(a) Diversity of students: Academic institutions must learn that diversity of backgrounds is a necessary condition for diversity of outlook, discussion in the class and enrichment of collective creative energy. Majority of management institutes take as many as 90% or more students with only engineering background. This was not the case a decade ago. We must give due weightage to diversity of academic backgrounds and bring students from arts, commerce, culture and also the sciences in the class. Other professional streams should also try to diversify their intake. The gender diversity is equally important.

(b) Promotion of change agentry: Despite overwhelming expression of societal dissatisfaction with the status quo, academic institutions do not make any special effort to induct 'odd balls', assertive and fortitudinous minds and youth with some experience of having stood their ground in wake of an adversity. There is no evidence that high proficiency in English language or quantitative scores make a person a better manager or even leader of a society. We must bring about radical change in the way we look for achievers in different fields having potential for organisational or societal transformation.

(c) Nurturing entrepreneurial talent: While every policymaker regrets that there are not enough entrepreneurs coming out of academic institutions in our country, we never ask the question whether we have made an effort to look for such young people during admissions, and nurture their spirit.

(d) Transparency and accountability: There is absolutely no escape from making systems transparent and accountable with respect to various kinds of decision-making. The arbitrariness and various kinds of biases have demoralised constituents in many institutions. This is not a sustainable situation.

(e) Pursuit of excellence: We have to remember that outstanding people are generally also non-conformist. If leaders cannot learn to deal with people with whom they disagree, then we should forget about pursuing excellence. Policymakers must monitor extent to which dissent, democracy and diversity are promoted in various institutions. A change not monitored, I have always argued, is a change not desired.

(f) Capacity building: On several occasions, people who are selected to lead institutions of higher learning have no experience in administration or delegation of powers. This issue had come out forcefully at the vice chancellors' conference which MHRD organised last year. Should not leadership be mentored and formally exposed to various leadership and governance models so that they can choose to evolve their own systems including good ideas from different outstanding institutions? One must concede that IIMs, IIMA in particular, has maintained a very high degree faculty of autonomy which despite some scope for further improvement, has sustained itself reasonably well.

There is a huge opportunity for bridging excellence and inclusion in current expansion of higher education. Leadership is the crux. You put a timid and mediocre leader on the top, you don't have to do any thing further, and decline will follow inevitably. Political class and bureaucracy have to learn to live with such leaders of educational institutions as the country will not remain subservient to borrowed ideas any more.

Renaissance is round the corner; culture of conformity (and colonised minds) has to give way to that of dissent, diversity and endogenous cultural and social development.

The author is a professor
at IIMA. He can be reached at anilgb@gmail.com