Year-back issue @BPUT

Here is my take on the “year back” issue.

I start by assuming that everyone associated with the education sector is genuinely interested in handling the challenges related to inclusive growth and believes in healthy globalization.

Given the above assumption, in my opinion, the “year-back” system should not be seen in isolation. If BPUT wants to retain “quality control” over all the constituent/affiliated colleges, then it has to work on holistic measures to enhance the process-capability of a centralized system of education delivery. In such a system, “year-back” will be meaningful only when there is a collective ownership of the process (from admissions=>academic-delivery=>evaluation=>placement). This will require a lot of cooperation and coordination between the promoters of private colleges and the government functionaries. Efforts should be taken to involve the other stakeholders as well by balancing their expectations. With Orissa taking steps to welcome the industry, it would be essential to have the corporations participating actively in manpower development. Opportunities need to be availed for better Industry-institute interaction. Surprisingly, corporations have been left out of this entire debate as of now. The industry department of the GoO should be looking into this aspect.

As reported in today’s newspaper, BPUT is considering deployment of resources for (a) Developing a cadre of centralized faculty (b) Implementing smart-cards for monitoring student attendance (c) Monitoring faculty activities through e-systems and (d) Developing a question bank with solutions. I doubt if these measures are going to bring collective responsibility in administering quality. We do not see much scope for active participation of either the promoters or the corporations. To meet the needs of the industry we need to factor in the requirements of the industry. Further, technology should be used to re-engineer the existing processes and not for merely monitoring the same old processes. Case in point is monitoring of classroom attendance - it will not give the much needed fillip to the creative world of academics. Rather, technology should be used for creating innovative modes of interaction between the stakeholders - certainly for the young generation (of students and teachers). Moreover, it could be used in enabling the corporations to participate in the academic development process. Finally, if the stakeholder community decides to adopt “year-back” as a mode of controlling quality output, then all attempts must be made beforehand (in the upstream process) to ensure that the students are given a fair chance to clear the various “quality check points” to be able to qualify as “industry-ready”. Here also technology could be deployed and it has been perhaps partly suggested by BPUT.

The stakeholder community of a centralized set up (as you know) would be definitely large and it would not be easy to allow individual freedom and creativity. Therefore, it would be better to decentralize and provide distributed process capabilities at the level of the schools and colleges with their own inherent set of stakeholders. Thereafter, if the stakeholder community of (say) College-X decides to have “year-back” as a means of ensuring quality, then so be it. Let them be allowed the freedom to decide their own quality parameters. BPUT can use its resources (instead) to setup benchmarks, provide constructive guidelines and develop various knowledge resources to support the autonomous colleges. In addition, it can continue evaluating the students of those colleges who express their desire to be governed by a centralized system of evaluation.

It is surprising to see the oldest college of the state (i.e., UCE Burla) still not enjoying the autonomy that it deserves. Please check if this is true. In my opinion, colleges both in the private and public sector should be given the freedom to develop their own capabilities should they express the desire to be fully autonomous.