Leadership or ladder ship in higher education
THE Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are led by eminent educationists who are expected to be highly qualified academicians, administrators and true leaders for steering the institutions to achieve excellence in their respective domains.
It is generally expected that the institutional head is responsible to manage financial, academic, research and other resources for the higher education eco-system developed within HEIs.
The faculty, students, and staff are the main stakeholders which collectively make use of all these resources for developing quality academic and research culture in the HEIs. This all goes fine if there is a synergy and synchronization of the thoughts.
The balance in actions and reactions of different stakeholders allows the HEIs to move in the forward direction with consistent speed. Any imbalance created in academic, research, or financial matters will lead to disaster which we are observing these days in the form of financial or other failures.
The main cause of financial imbalance seems to be lack of planning, false expectations of grants, an unreal approach for the generation of additional revenue, and lack of specialized skills for financial management. The integration of the ICT tools can help in planning income and expenses in the right manner.
It is reported in the news that the Senate Standing Committee was informed that Universities are getting 32% of their total income from the federal government through HEC, 8% percent grant is given by the provinces and 60% is to be generated by the University from its resources i.e. tuition fee, affiliation fee, examination fee, degree fee, Alumni, etc.
The generation of 60% percent funds from own resources is a gigantic task for public sector Universities as old practices do not allow any commercial engagement with private companies or partners.
The local media and social groups discourage affiliation of any brand with the university due to reasons of favouritism, corruption and nepotism.
Although, Universities may devise a system for generating funds with the approval of respective fora ie Finance Planning Committee, Syndicate and Senate but most of the Universities in the public sector will rely on getting funds through clean sources ie Government Grants.
In search of funding, faculty are encouraged to get research projects approved by different donors. This is one of the main sources of income for universities after grants, tuition fees, etc.
As soon as research funds are received, the financial manager will come in action to train faculty members on how to prepare paper utilization reports as most of the time the equipment, furniture and tools demanded in the research projects are already available in the University.
Such adjustments help in saving a hefty amount for the researchers and University. The faculty who was not aware of such adjustments are now ready to grab more projects to get more dividends apart from salary.
The practices are shared amongst the Universities, and it became a good practice, and people involved in such practices are considered wise.
An institutional leader will provide a financial ladder for running the regular and development costs of the institution.
He should be trained through institutional arrangements already available in the public sector.
Afterward comes the Human Resource Management at HEIs which is becoming more bureaucratic than democratic as a leader with a democratic approach is considered a loose administrator and people would try to misuse his authority due to his sincere nature.
This is a challenge and needs a balanced approach for dealing with different groups in faculty as well as in staff members. Some Universities in the public sector are heaven for free riders who earn salaries for doing nothing.
The absence of departmental vision, mission, goals and job description breeds such culture. The reforms agenda is mission impossible in some of the institutions but carrot and stick policy work in some cases.
The continuous effort for placing the right person at the right place will work when key positions are given to like-minded people. It is observed that an organized effort may yield some positive results if the main stakeholders are on board.
The institutional leaders are considered as resourceful and leadership at Higher Education is like a ship full of ladders that provides professional and personal development ladders for raising their knowledge and skills during the service.
Core knowledge of the discipline along with a grip on current trends is one of the primary requirements for faculty members at university, to acquire both one must explore scholarships along with suitable supervisors in foreign countries.
All this requires time and for this, they need to be given proper workload along with the target of hunting scholarship within three to four years of the appointment.
Most of the time, it is observed that the major workload of teaching is on junior faculty which hinders their professional development.
It is the need of the hour to engage students, faculty, and staff at university in their primary domain along with taking care of professional and personal development needs.
As quality graduates will bring good name to the institution and it is only possible when there is a good working and learning environment.
—The writer is Deputy Director at Higher Education Commission, Islamabad.
