HiEd Log

A three-page document I came across in a college was for documenting events they organise. It carried three stages like pre-event, event and post-event. Each part carried a number of columns to collect information which was indeed quite detailed. I am sure that many who feel like organising an event will be put off by this and might kill the very thought! What surprised me was that much of the  information sought is never warranted to impress upon any body that the college has indeed organised anything. It looks like in the fever to push documentation to its limits, the ones in charge leave no stones unturned. Perhaps under the impression that the more columns a document carries, the more impressed the assessors will be!  The unanimous cry of complaint against the office of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) that it triggers overdocumentation is not always misplaced. It deserves to be seriously looked into as on objective analysis this is found to be true. Overdocument...

Jumping right in, around 90 percentage of those in leadership in the Higher education scene in Kerala right now are Asst Professors. They occupy key leadership roles, whether it is that of the Head of the Dept. or IQAC coordinators or Vice Principals. It is not uncommon to come across Asst. Professors who hold the position of Principals too. This spreads to membership of boards of studies and similar bodies too at the next level.  Lack of regular appointments for a decade in the past has left a vacuum in the hierarchy and this has led to this tricky scenario. From 1996 to 2007 there was an appointment ban in the State in the govt and aided colleges and this has precipitated a situation which is unprecedented. The senior faculty members have retired while absence of regular input in the form of young recruits have left a vaccum. While those academics who reach 56 years of age retire from colleges in Kerala, the next seniormost one to take the leadership chair could be someone much,...

  A common faculty argument during Faculty Development Programmes is that the student expectations do not agree with their good intentions and get in the way of their desire to innovate and experiment. This creates an interesting question as to what exactly is the job of a teacher? How does he/she help raise expectations in terms of the institutional practices or the faculty's instructional design?  Here when I speak of teacher expectations, I confine to matters related to the ways course content is transacted, though it can mean much more than that. When I urge the faculty where I worked, lead or where I visit for talks or trainings, the common burden of the song is, 'students expect us to lecture so how can we not? The students expect only pen and paper test, then how can we....?'  One thing the HEI leadership should ensure is that the Student Induction/orientation programmes conducted at the beginning of the academic year is an opportunity to also communicate to the ...

College where each one of the faculty members has a website of her/his own is a rarity. Neither is it mandatory to be that way. Unless the need can be justified strongly, there is no rationale to argue in favour of this. I don't think the digital presence and footprints will grow so exponentially that each professional will need to have one personal website. But many professionals who take themselves seriously create permanent, impressionable presences on the world wide web as it improves their visibility and showcases their activities and achievements. My efforts at ACAS have been to impress upon each member of the faculty community that they are professionals who take themselves and their career development seriously. Hence the idea to make the faculty members find their early digital foothold with at least personal Googlesites. Since ACAS had established an ecosystem which promotes sustained faculty professional development with a suite of programmes addressing the promotion of ...

To make faculty members read is one of the biggest challenges. It needs no debate whether faculty should read or not. A teacher who doesn't read is a teacher who doesn't grow. And a teacher who doesn't grow can by extension create generation of learners who are left behind. This is extremely damaging in the long run and it is reflected at multiple levels in the performance of the faculty members too. For the emotional and intellectual growth of both the teacher and the learner, it is important the teacher keeps grounded and connected. Reading helps achieve that. This explains the decision to make an effort to encourage reading among the faculty members. To the number of Continuous Professional Development initiatives, one more was added: 'My Reading: Teachers' Reading Experiences'  The Plan  The general gut feeling is that majority of the faculty members in HEIs are not good readers. Or perhaps they couldn't find time to read what they would love to. As we a...

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 ...

While going through the entry level requirements for a summer school programme offered by an International University, it was found that they ask about the publications of the applicant. Discussing the same, one aspirant asked me, how it was possible for an undergraduate student to have publications. Weren't publications meant for postgrads and research scholars?, she, a UG student, asked. I said then that at the college where I worked, there were students who walked out with Publication at the end of their graduation. When I said so, I was referring to the Interdisciplinary Insights project which we successfully launched at ACAS.  The seriousness with which ACAS approached the student projects had resulted in a number of outcomes. As I have commented in a couple of my previous posts, it is often the realisation of certain targets which made us raise the bar and dream bigger. Since we established a Project Quality Cell (PQC), there was increased awareness among the faculty members...