FYUGP & HE Leadership Opportunities

Policy shifts are necessary and expected. Those shifts may indicate the future pathways a system, an institution, has to undertake to evolve according to the vision set or to sync with the larger unfolding scene around. Such policy shifts are challenging  not just for those who draft it. It is more challenging to those who implement it: the advisory bodies, overseeing Universities and the faculty and faculty leadership. The one category I haven't mentioned above is the institutional leadership who are chosen to play the pivot when such a massive transformation is navigated. 

India is shifting gears in its efforts to implement the New Education Policy and the confusion and frustration are visible at different levels. Talking change and making change are entirely different ballgames with the former being easy and latter, hard. The role of leadership in times of transformation is key to ensuring that the envisaged change is communicated in as cogent terms as possible, is made practical in as evident a manner as possible. While this involves hardships of the unseen and unknown nature, it also offers a rare opportunity for the right leaders to prove their mettle. Education always involves setting a vision for what's emerging, with eyes set against the horizons which are forever fading. Though all vision setters are not visionaries, a period of transformation like the one which unfolds before the Higher Education in the country now, opens up avenues of genuine exploration for Higher Education Leaders' skill sets. 

While it is customary to resist change, the same can't be a boon for the education leadership. Certainly all changes are not changes for good. Certain changes may have come too soon and will be considered as too much of a change too! But once the policy is set and placed before you on a platter, as a leader, the room left is to implement the set of changes as effectively as possible. Since what has cleanly killed many of the pathbreaking transformations which followed the policy directives in the past was the lack of passion and drive on the part of the leadership. The HEIs can attempt to lead the change if the leadership has the willingness to stick their hands out of the chaos of Policy switch they are in the middle of. 

The core push of the FYUGP is the push towards curricular flexibility, interdisciplinarity, skill set integration, self learning, vocationalisation or ability enhancement, among other things. These will be the fuel which makes possible a transformation of the HE scene from what it is today to what it is envisaged to be. Much of the what and how of this transformation is tied to how this transformation is led by those on top. We are familiar with a scenario in which the mediocrity will set the agenda and the rest will often follow suit, putting the blame on the 'system' and the the 'impracticality' of the new practices. Though the challenges ahead are deep, it is not beyond the capable ones among the HEI leadership to take the listed bulls by the horns and claim the leadership laurel. Or else those who lead will surely be soon a part of the said mediocrity and blame the system, blissfully oblivious that they themselves are responsible partly for the said system. 

Because what will be of dire need as we move on the with the newly designed Four Year Undergraduate Programme in the formative period of the implementation of the NEP will be models to emulate, credible institutional templates to model oneself on. The College Principals, Institution Directors and HEI leaders of the ilk will have to roll up their academic sleeves and get down to work. Setting a time frame of three years to place firm bottom rungs of the ladder in place. The HEIs can establish themselves with specialised capacities in interdisciplinarity or skill-set integration or outcome centered learning. There is an acute shortage of those who are clearly in the know as to what they are doing and where they are headed. There is a clear deficit of those who are willing to learn and lead in these early stages. This is where a new leadership can emerge or the ones in the lead can get learning and leading, can allow a young leadership pipeline to emerge in the institutions to grab the opportunity and help place their institution in the lead. 

No policy shift works without a willingness to shed loyalty to the dated old ways of doing business. No policy can be implemented if one fails to learn from the partial or fully failed attempts to implement the novel practices introduced when similar efforts were undertaken when shifts like CBCSS was implemented. We are yet to recover from that attempted switch and many institutions and their leadership continue to pay lip service to the changes brought in then and the results are there for all to see. An audit will help assess exactly where our systems stand in terms of the stated objectives of that switch to CBCSS. Still there are some Institutions and leaders in the HEIs who took the challenge head-on and tweaked their academic practices and institutional policies. The current bus is one which responsible Higher Education Leadership doesn't want to miss. At times the HEI leadership may find itself in a situation in which the policy buses you feel like getting into may not always be the buses you were waiting for! While destinations are chosen by the policy makers, a daring leadership has to make the journey as interesting and fruitful as possible. 

Who knows, we may even end up at better destinations! 

Babu. P. K., Ph D.