Wish we had an alternative!

The occasion was the annual convocation at one of the better engineering institutes of the country. But the president of India didn’t spare words while expressing his deep disappointment on the sliding run of the universities of world’s third biggest economy in the world(in terms of PPP).

Major concerns were drawn on the line of –

• ·         Not a single Indian university making a mark in top-200 universities of the world as per reports
• ·         Falling number of patents filed by the countrymen every year

When we closely look at the parameters which decided rankings of these colleges, research and innovation was one area where we lagged big time!

We take this parameter up for the discussion in this post leaving others for later ones while keeping the discussion attached to the engineering institutes only in order to narrow down the scope of this article.

India currently boasts a massive network of 3393 engineering colleges which holds 14.85 lacs seats to be filled by prospective engineers.

While the fact remains that more than 3 lacs seats last year were left vacant, we still can safely assume that India is churning out more than 10 lacs engineers an year, more than the total population of many small nations of the world.

Add this figure with the latest Employability figures released by Aspiring minds in collaboration with Dun&Bradstreet which hangs at as low at 20%.

What does all the figures above suggests?

We are turning into a quantity education hub rather than the quality education hub which everyone would have aspired for.

There are multiple reasons for this disaster-in-waiting.

Government policies to weaken the filtering of students at school level, Over-liberal regulations in terms of granting accreditations to universities and colleges, Inability to check the quality of education and efficiencies of professional and higher education systems and Huge amount of investments made on the establishment of this massive network of colleges, majorly by founders with political background which leaves little to no scope for professional management and administration of these institutes. Auditing leakages and lack-lustre mechanism adds to the inefficiencies further.

One thing which is compromised over and over again in this messy recipe is the quality of everything.

Quality of students inducted into the institutions, quality of faculty recruited to these institutes, quality of administration to exercise control and check for loopholes, quality of education imparted and unfortunately, the last node of this cycle, quality of students emanating from the institutes.

Though Mr.President did hit the nail by pointing out the disastrous results on the patent filing and university rankings, need of the hour is to pin-point at reason leading to this stage and how can this be overpowered.

The kind of environment students get in universities and colleges is far from conducive to participate and do research and development. If we leave some of the top institutes like IITs, NITs, BITSs and few other institutes, and look into the factors that lead to research and development, it would become even more clear on where are we actually lagging.

Lack of Facilities, Guidance and Motivation to undertake research and development for students of these institutes are major deterrents and must be fine tuned as soon as possible.

However, what our HRD and Higher education executives in government must first indulge in, is soul searching exercise of what has gone wrong in this country which produced some astonishing academicians once. What must also be considered is how relevant is the model we are following in the current times.

The job is painstaking and difficult beyond any reasonable doubt, but I wish we had alternative !!

The myth of ideal set-up

I reached well in time.

Something inside me said, it was going to be embarrassing. It was not what I set out for. But well, however cheesy it may sound I do take note of certain dialogs from bollywood movies and one which got me over this was from a relatively new flick on life of a salesman and his ambition to go beyond the sculpted way.”Every man has two qualities in him. One which take him up and the other which brings him down and the quality which ultimately wins, the man would live his life accordingly.

It was one of that moment where I thought of walking away without testing the metal of my enthusiasm and passion for what I wanted to. Simply, because the setting was not what I thought would be.

There are two problems the way B-school graduates are taught in one of the best B-schools in this country.

Firstly, the only businesses and only problems which we are taught to get into and deal with are the ones which are BIG.

Second point, majorly emerges from the first. Since we are taught to deal with big, we are habituated towards a particular setting where we have to exercise our so call managerial charm.

I am no exception to have fallen for these two myths of B-school learning experience. What leads to this, is a story I must take separately, but for now I try to flounder across my way out of this twin illusionistic way of b-school erudition towards a tatty building with no sign of welcome which we are conjured about and a bare minimum audience who frankly, does not care where you are from and what you plan to do. Quite a letdown, you see!

Well, I was very liberal about the audience strength in last paragraph. Actually, there was no one to listen to me there when I reached.

I called up my friend who set this up for me and he was kind enough to suggest that I was free to leave if I wanted to. All the brain-cells engaged in forging out plans of making my first workshop on personality development a grand success changed their course in trying to convince me on how this is a recipe for disaster and how quickly I must find my way out of the historic building.

Something stopped me from being a puppet to these few cells which might have already started celebrating when I started my bike with an idea of pulling up my stakes there.

So all of this for nothing? And who said it was going to be easy? It is all about experiences and nothing is going to be as fruitful as an on-field experience of being jeered upon field than being clapped on by friends about a brilliant idea discussed in classroom.

I will deal with it - was the last time I spoke to myself before the workshop started.

I spoke with the in-charge of this workshop and his optimism came as a positive surprise to me about the expected attendance. Encouragingly, a group of young kids came right up to the building, wished me (!) and went inside the room just to discuss how this will turn out.

In less than 30 minutes the room was full with audience. Well, it was a small room and e had the total audience of around 30 but it was good enough for me to start.

I wanted to have a 2 hour session for these kids but they never stopped surprising me with their energy levels, enthusiasm and creativity which was exemplary while we did exercises and group activities.

1 student left the group, I later found her in deep discussion with another guy(behind a tree!) and the discussion did look too serious to be avoided for a workshop. 5 new students joined who were called upon by their friends during the session. What I realized at the end of the session was that the session had run for three and a half hours, without a single break. Nobody went out for water or washroom.

There was sense of curiosity on their faces. They were jubilant and hungry for more. I learned multiple lessons that day. About me, about how important was what I was trying to do, What is the state of these kids lost in ‘India shining’ stories, and most importantly – I was so wrong about the set-up theory!

We will never have the perfect setting to do good work. We will have to own the setting and do good work.

My first workshop on personality development was an experience to cherish, which I will preserve as long as my grey cells allow me to.

Cheers

The vicious input-output cycle

While working on the plan to beef up the quality content at engineering and management colleges, I discovered a vicious cycle which many institutes have fallen atrap in .

This vicious cycle have multiple nodes and an endless loop that pass through it, well, almost.

I am putting down this cycle here which I also use aplenty while explaining to our clients on the creeping in factors of this cycle, how are they in particular affected by this cycle and most importantly – what is the way out?

I call this cycle, the “Input-Output Cycle”.

As the name suggest it builds upon the input and output functions of an education system when the factors in consideration is the student quality in specific.

Without further ado we get down to the model and understand how it can be applied.

When I say it’s a vicious cycle, It means that we may start from any node in the cycle and construct an endless loop with little to no difficulty.

I particularly believe the top-most node, Institute perception is the most relevant and constructive node to build the argument upon, however, the reader if free to tread his own path.

An institute perception is what prospective endorsers or peers conceive the institute’s potential, reputation, ability and most importantly credibility in their view. It is simply put, a representation of the institute in their thoughts.

A positive and progressive perception of an institute hence is of utmost importance to ensure that the institute is branded with the right perceptions and positioning in the minds of prospective student community that would make this institute up in future.

Obviously, a negative perception about the institute leads to an unfavourable quality input into the institute in terms of induction of new batches.

This quality of students can hardly be improved miraculously. An IT proverb “Garbage In Garbage Out” comes out as the most relevant phrase for the application. This more often than not, leads to a sub-standard batch quality of the passing out students in terms of the knowledge that they gather against what would be expected out of them when the rubber meets the road. Unfortunately, a major chunk of students also lags in the professional attitude which these days is turning out to be most important factor that companies look for in these young engineers and managers.

As anyone would guess such mismatch of the skills and abilities leads to unsatisfactory performance coupled with sour relationships between the employees and their supervisors and sometimes, unfortunately even between employers and the colleges which are represented on the floor by these young aspirants.

And if you haven’t lost the plot, you would understand that this bring a bad reputation to the institute and leads to an overall negative perception in the eyes of employers, prospective students and guardians.

The ill-effects continues to build upon the deteriorating quality of students and the cycle continues to plunge the institute deep down the blind alley of sub-standard campus knowledge quality.

Well, its time most colleges in this blind alley and the ones who are heading towards it, recognize and realize the challenge and work towards the solution, before its tool late.

One step at a time..

The writing is on the wall!

Whether we choose to accept it or not, the reality remains to its existence. The statement can be applied to a variety of situations and almost every time you do that, you can’t help but notice a brutal ignorance of people about the transformation of the very milieu they breath in.

An unfortunate success which I met with on my aforesaid conviction was with the state of higher education, as it unfolded before my bewildered eyes.

Having a reasonable understanding of how the higher education system in this part of the country works, I was merely disappointed than shocked on the grim situation.

An engineering college which is pushing itself rock-hard in order to have as less unfilled seats as possible. Atleast, not more than the seats which were lost last year. In this case, just like airlines and multiplexes, a seat lost once cannot be recovered ever again. Another one struggling  to get enough students to  run the show.

Just as you feel inception of an empathetic feeling for these institutes, another contrasting thought trickles down your brain. Isn’t it what they deserve?

The answer to this question is both, omnipresent and veiled (depending upon who just read that line!)

There are multiple reasons for the sorry state of alot engineering as well as management colleges in this country. Some people blame it on the regulatory slack for their over liberal rules in granting permission to these colleges during the last decade which has created more supply than demand in the market.

While there is another set who bestows a more pragmatic view on the situation. They opine that the imbalance of demand and supply will always be there in some or the other way. What is required, however, by the institutes is to remain competitive all the times in order to ensure that the correction does not lead to their debacle when the obliteration of this mushrooming sector takes place.

I try hard to take side but like almost every time, fail to do so. It is easier not to fall in the trap of having a stern opinion in this case due to very logical arguments made by the two groups.

What is more disheartening is not the state in which such  institutes are, but the sheer ignorance or denial they tend to indulge in, more often than not due to a conscious effort rather than a sincere mistake.

Encouragingly (surprisingly) however there are many endorsers to the idea of quality education in the same circuit (more surprisingly) who express such wishful desire and accept a need of a turn-around of a sort which will not only shift gears for the industry but for such ailing institute(extremely surprisingly, they don’t think their institute is one them!)

Denial is the first cousin of problem and interestingly, most of these institutes which have been dwelling the problem within, starts challenging it with its cousin as a tool. Not the ideal counter-attack!

Time has come when before finding reasons for the problem, solutions for problems (for others, coz we don’t have problems, right?) and then blaming someone for the problem, we – accept that there is a problem.

Time has come to take - one step at a time.