Posters, Poses and Practice in HEIs

The Higher Education scene is increasingly becoming a flat world, it looks like! When all colleges offer all services and have all facilities and run all activities and have all collaborations and provide all competencies, it has got to be a levelled world with all HEIs equally  of high quality. No bumps on the graph. State-of-the-art seems to be the state of minimum affairs. As a person who always keeps an eye on what other educational institutions are upto, it amazes me how much all the HEIs are collectively doing. This is reflected through the material shared on the social media as posters and reels and statuses. 

The scene has never been so vibrant if one is to go by the poster-reel scenario. Each year there is an increase in promotional activities by the HEIs pointing to the rising competition and perhaps also reflecting the slow fall in enrollment. Each year it is possible to spot even new institutions which so far considered themselves in an elite category (and hence not requiring promos), joining the chorus of marketing drives. This year there are State Universities too which got into the act of issuing posters to attract students.

Though this is fine, what is not so fine is the huge gulf between what is professed and practiced. If we go by the content of the posters and promo literature, it is hard to distinguish between the mundane and the magnificent. They all make the same or similar claims. At times the pose some of the HEIs strike is downright hilarious if we are aware of the divide between what the promo literature proclaims and what actually transpires in these institutions. Though all  promos always carry an inherent element of brag, insuring us against taking the claims too seriously, the trend is pushing the limits. 

The downside of this trend is how the public will ignore the whole campaign. It is already evident that majority of these promo efforts of the HEIs hardly hit the target. If the HEIs can stress what is their real strength, proven value, this situation could be avoided. When every college claims strong academy-industry linkage, civil service coaching centre, robust research ecosystem, state-of-the-art (!) IoT lab, Business Incubators and twinning, every one on the road knows that the truth is far off! That could be one reason they don't bother to read through all the core features listed! 

'Strike a pose' is fine for the HEIs. But when it remains that way too long, too hard, the effort behind the pose-forming stands out. You can't hold your breath and pull tummy in too long. End of the day, answer to the query 'what is a good college' boils down to what we get when we chat with students who studied there, opinions of genuine faculty who knows the place, the parent community who are closely involved regarding the pose-free reputation these HEIs have built over the years. No amount of postering, posing, can be an alternative for the honest work it has done and outcome it can show in terms of skilling, capability building, attitude formation and value enhancement. 

As one parent commented, since none bothers to read all those details in ad-posters, let's worry less about it. Let us treat it like the those 'Chinese, continental food served' boards we spot in front of the out-of-business, closed restaurants! Some of us can also afford to be complacent considering the fact that the level of hyperbole in marketing has gone up these days with claims of first, best, biggest and largest - all kinds of superlatives - piling up with none really bothering to stop and check the veracity. But can Higher Education too stoop to that level?! Looks like some of them can. 

Babu. P. K., Ph D.