However, the evolution of the university as an organization has taken the overall system to a space where the words like competition, market, profit, revenue, etc. seem to dominate the day-to-day vocabulary. Under such an environment, expecting the Chief Executive Officers (Vice Chancellors) to function as ‘Kulpati (Overall head of the Gurukula, an ancient form of apex knowledge centre)’ appears to be a great contradictory role-design, ignoring the environmental reality.
As per the Act, most of the universities, have provisions for democratic academic decisions, however, sometimes, due to short-term interests of some of the stakeholder groups the system evolves with ‘comfort-zone structure’, serving to a few powerful stakeholder groups in the system.
In other words, the agreement on using ‘autonomy’ as a shield to serve the interest of a few becomes a norm and its’ effect on quality and relevance of higher education is quite evident. A recent article questions the liberty and autonomy of Vice Chancellors in view of their accountability to the different stakeholders of the system. The article shows the examples of alleged power misuse by executive leaders while still proving legally and technically correct, perhaps a larger ethical issue that need attention of lawmakers.
Let us have a look into the issues affecting executive functioning in most of the private Indian universities. The Private University Act, in most of Indian States, appear to be copy of the respective ‘Public University Act’. The aims, objectives, democratic structure and all the academic/ administrative functioning is similar to (at least supposed to be) in case of Public Universities. The Vice-Chancellor (or other equivalent positions) are ‘legally’ considered to be Chief-Executive of the university.
The qualification and experience prescribed for the Vice Chancellor position is similar in both private as well as public universities and, therefore, the roles and responsibilities also alike. However, there is a major point of departure in private universities regarding the role of ‘Chancellor’ who is appointed by the sponsoring body or the investors. Interestingly, as per the Act, the Chancellor can turn-down any decision of a Vice-Chancellor (or other university bodies) whether academic, financial or administrative.
In case of public universities, the position of Chancellor has ceremonial role and, therefore, there are no ‘prescribed’ qualification for the position. In most of the cases, either Governors of the States or eminent personalities are appointed as Chancellor. However, in case of many of the private universities, the Chancellors act full-time and above the Vice-Chancellors in hierarchy. In other words, its’ a creation of new position with enormous authority and almost very low legally prescribed accountability.
Further, the conflict of interest due to sponsoring body’s direct intervention in day-to-day academic functioning through their representative questions the suitability of the current framework to ensure the transparency and academic autonomy in the system. In some cases, where the Chancellors have acted maturely in larger interest, this arrangement has also contributed well, however, such positive impact cases are not many.
There are some who justify current arrangement on ground of the amount of financial investment by the promoter. Perhaps we forget that if protecting investment is the only criteria, we must try to allow profit-making organizations in higher education sector too instead of maintaining the current hypocritic stance of ‘education for good’ at face-value.
So. in both the cases i.e. private as well as public, the autonomy and accountability balance of executive leadership is in question under the current arranges. There appears to be need for strong regulatory reforms to first ensure the uniformity in work-systems and internal academic democracy across both public and private sector universities. Collective action and transparency is the way forward. There is strong need to drive transparency in functioning of the universities, irrespective of the sources of the funding and role of individuals.
Image-3 Courtesy - Getty Image
Prof. (Dr.) Shiv K. Tripathi
Professor and Dean (Training) at IIHMR University, Jaipur and India Chapter Lead of Humanistic Management Network. He is author of titles Corporate Yoga and Higher Education Management. He is one of the pioneering thought leaders on ‘Phronetic Wisdom in Management’ and ‘Higher Education Transparency’. The views expressed in the article are author’s own view. Email - shivktripathi@hotmail.com