“When I joined IMI, there were around 31 faculty members and now, we have 65 members. Our dream is to have around 80 members” says Padma Shri Dr Pritam Singh, Director General, International Management Institute in an exclusive interview with Ankush Kumar. We share his insight on government policies, pending Foreign University Bill and qualities that a good leader should possess

How has been your journey so far in the education sector?
After doing MBA and working for a company in Pittsburg, United States, I started my career as a Professor in the area of Organization Behaviour. Later on, I also became the chairman of Management Development programme. After fourand- a-half years, I joined Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, where I worked for about 13 years as Senior Professor and Dean. During my tenure, I organized programmes for the Ministry, bureaucrats, secretaries and joint secretaries. This was the most important period of my life. Then, I joined IIM, Bangalore as Senior Professor and Dean. In 1995, I joined the Management Development Institute (MDI) as Director. I worked for about three years. On the request of Ministry, I joined IIM Lucknow as Director for four-and-ahalf years (1998-2003). And then, I came back to MDI again as a Director. After this, I was distinguished professor for about three years till 2011. For last three years, I am Director General, International Management Institute, New Delhi looking after three campuses i.e. Delhi, Bhubaneswar and Kolkata. Before going to US, I began my career with Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi as a lecturer and then, University of Rajasthan as an assistant professor. I have been fortunte to have intimatly experienced different education sytems-be it the US; in the Indian context- the university system,IIM,MDI system among others. Academics has and will always be my passion-perhaps my being a topper in academics reflects this….This is my journey.

Craze for B-schools has diminished over the years. Where did it go wrong?
India is a very fascinating country. Most of the players in the education industry thought that management education is a good business. So, they came in this field to make money, which is very unfortunate. They did not make sufficient investment. The soul of any management institution is the quality of the faculty. Institutions are run by the faculty and not by the infrastructure and other things. But later on, they realized they were not making money and students were not coming. At one time, there was boom, but soon the growth started coming down from nine to five percent. Professional education is very much linked to the economy. So, 239 B-schools were closed. Today, if you ask my frank opinion, there are only 25 good B-schools in the country. If you take away these 25 schools, I would be very hesitant to recommend the students to go for management programmes because good quality faculty members are not available. Right now, there are 13 IIMs. If you take away, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode and Lucknow, high quality faculty members are not available. When you want to establish a medical college, you must have hospitals, if you want engineering colleges, you must have workshops and if you want management institutes, you should have industry. Many of the colleges lack the market. Learning in the field of management is by doing and not reading as it is not philosophy and sociology. I am not sure whether these institutes will come up as good B-schools or not. Brand IIM is also a myth. Many IIMs cannot be compared to schools like XLRI Jamshedpur, etc. The schools which have invested money in faculty development will surely come on top. If you talk about top 100 global management schools, how many Indian institutions are on this list? It is amazing to see how China is coming up. We want to become a knowledge hub and say we will train future leaders. These are very nice slogans to listen to, but ground reality is very different. We have around 46,000 academic colleges in the country.

“Today, if you ask my frank opinion, there are only 25 good B-schools in the country. If you take away these 25 schools, I would be very hesitant to recommend the students to go for management programmes because good quality faculty members are not available”

Government of India’s education policy is very faulty. Are we following the existing systems? Do we have guts to bring performance management in the education system?
If you go to university system, you will find that people only speak about past. Any Vice Chancellor who talks about performance or semester system lands in trouble. Our country could face youth unrest. You have to provide reasonable opportunities for bread and butter along with education otherwise, people will revolt. If you want to be global power, it is going to be through education, as we don’t have other resources which other countries have got. Our only resource is population. If you say human beings are a great asset, we need to have right kind of human beings otherwise they will be a liability. We talk about the pending Foreign University Bill, where universities of other countries will come and reform our system. Do you think MIT or Stanford will be coming to India? If they come here, we will not be able to afford it. Ways of US can’t work in India; educationists should formulate an education policy. When the US was built, they decided they will do things differently and not follow Europe. We also have to be innovative and do things differently.

What changes have been brought by you in IMI?
Academic institutions are built around great faculty. When I joined MDI, we had about 12 faculty members, when I left MDI, we were 76. When I joined IMI, there were around 31 faculty members and now, we have 65 members. Our dream is to have around 80 members. Our faculty members have PhDs from good foreign universities or are from IIM. We don’t compromise on quality of faculty members. Our salary budget was around `10 crore when I joined IMI and now it is `18 crore. This is a very productive investment if you want to be a leader. Another thing which I did was to focus on Management Development Programmes (MDPs). We had a very low number of MDPs and training programmes. We must connect with the corporate world and in this endeavor, we should do something for it. You should do different programmes for companies across sector. Today, they are coming to us. You will be surprised to know that in three years, the figure has moved from `2.35 crore to `16 crore in the MDP area.

“If you go to university system, you will find that people only speak about past. Any Vice Chancellor who talks about performance or semester system lands in trouble.”

How important are corporate tieups for management institutes?
If you are not connected to corporate world, you will not know what is happening there. In last six years, we have hired some adjunct faculty members, who have great experience in corporate world. They are managers, general managers, HR president, etc in the corporate world. Eight to nine persons out of our 65 faculty members are adjunct faculty members. We are grooming leaders who can provide thought leadership. We are extremely liberal about faculty development. We have also started Phd programmes to attract scholars. We have pumped around `50 crore for infrastructure and will spend `10 crore more in future.

Given your expertise in the subject of Leadership in Management, what are the five qualities that make a good leader?
hoFirst, one should have humility. Forget mistakes as you can’t build tomorrow on the basis of yesterday. By serving people, you become more indispensable because people start feeling your absence if you are not around. This doesn’t happen with the king. People don’t miss a king for long. He must be capable of integrating the dots and creating a pattern. He should fly at 60,000 feet, but should also be able to walk on ground. He should be a steady thinker and action oriented. He should have a binocular vision with an eye for both the macro and micro detail. He must trust, empower and delegate. He should spend his time in some kind of value addition, not getting involved in files and nitty-grity work. In my view, he should monitor as well as deligate because delegation without monitoring is abdication. He should be liberal, supportive, but ruthless in demanding performance.

How do executive progammes help in overall development of the student who comes with corporate background?
Ideally, a good MBA programme is where students join after three years of experience. In US and UK, the moment people graduate, they get something to do, but in India, if we forget engineering, people who do BA or B Com, don’t get anything to do. This is why we have two-year MBA programme. MBA is for people, who want to move from technocratic role to managerial role. People are joining management education for money. First question they ask is how much salary I would be getting and not what is the quality of education here. So, we first puncture this approach. Most of the management schools are becoming employment exchanges, which is very dangerous. People should come for learning.

How important is accreditation for an institute?
Accreditation is very vital for survival of an institute. Around 67 percent of our population is the young generation. Can you place all of them? It is difficult with even 15 percent growth rate. India in future will supply manpower to China, Europe, Japan, US and Canada. But what kind of people are you going to supply? If you don’t supply the right kind of people, then what will happen? Do you want people to join as a plumber or an engineer? If you have got accreditation from good universities, you can proudly say that I am grooming students of international standards. Accreditation is compulsory for all management schools, but where are the people to do it? People are very cynical now, like the government as they only talk, but nothing happens. You go to the National Board of Accreditation and see how many people work there. What kind of linkages have they got with the industry? They should clarify how they will execute their plan. They say increase of seats will be linked to accreditation. When there is more demand and less supply, corruption begins. That used to happen once upon a time in AICTE also. People used to collect money for a lot of approvals. This is the reason why AICTE got into trouble, today, the fate of AICTE is bleak. Accreditation is enabling role and the regulators should follow it.

In south India, the Muslim community has established centres of excellence. But in north India, they cannot even maintain the educational institution established by their forefathers, says Justice MSA Siddiqui, Chairman, National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, Government of India in conversation with Ankush Kumar

What is the mandate of National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI)?
This commission has been set up to safeguard the educational rights of the minorities enshrined under Article 30 of the Constitution that gives Right to the religious and linguistic minorities to establish their education institution and to administer them also. This is a quasi-judicial body and it enjoys all the trappings of a civil court. The act confers three roles to the commission – advisory, recommendatory and adjudicatory. So far as the adjudicatory part of the Commission is concerned, it has the jurisdiction to declare and determine the minority status of the minority educational institution. In federal polity, we have to respect the sovereignty of the state government. Therefore if any minority institution wants to get a minority status certificate, they have to apply to the state government first and if the application does not evoke any response from the state government, they should wait for three or four months and then approach to the Commission and in such cases, the Commission intervenes and grants minority status certificate on the basis of the evidence produced by the party. In case the state government rejects the application for granting minority status certificate, then one can appeal within 30 days of the order of the rejection. Similarly, if a person from the minority community wants to establish a professional college, be it dental, medical or engineering college for which NOC from the state government is required, he has to file an application before the competent authority of the state government for the grant of the same. If the state government does not pass any order within 90 days from the date of presentation of the application, then it will be deemed that NOC is granted, and in such a situation, he can proceed with the establishment of the proposed college. If the state government rejects the NOC grant application, then an appeal can be filed within 30 days from the date of the dismissal. The Commission’s order can be executed like the decree of a civil court. The commission has the power to execute the order, it also has the power of civil court. If a minority college wants to be affiliated to a UGC recognized university of its choice, they can file an application before the university. If the university rejects the application, then they can approach the Commission and the section says the decision of the Commission thereon shall be final. There is a provision barring the jurisdiction of the civil courts on the matters which are within the jurisdiction of the Commission.

What are the key benefits that an institution can get after getting nominated under the NCMEI?
Firstly, they can constitute their own governing body without any intervention from the state government. The state government and the administrative cannot impose anybody over the governing body of the managing committee of the minority educational institute.

Second, they can admit 100 percent students of their own community if he is not pursuing any aid from the state government. But if they are receiving any financial aid from the state government or the Central government than sub-Article 2 of Article 29 of the Constitution obligates the institution to admit non-minority students also to a reasonable extent.

Third and very importantly, they can select and appoint teaching and nonteaching staff, subject to the rider that the qualification and availability shall be prescribed by the state government, because that is necessary in the interest of academic excellence. Supreme Court has laid down that Article 30 gives the regulatory right and the regulation must exercise the dual test. First, these regulations have to be reasonable, and they must be in the interest of academic excellence.

The fourth freedom is that they can take action against the erring members of the staff.

The last freedom is that they can raise the fees of their institution reasonably. Then there are three more freedoms that one can enjoy in the policy of reservation in admission, policy of reservation in employment; they cannot be made applicable to a minority institution and are exempted from it. The Supreme Court has said that Right to Education (RTE) Act also does not apply to a minority education institution covered under Article 30. Madarsas and Pathshalas are exempted from the rigors of RTE. But the Supreme Court has said that if the minority education institution is receiving any aid from the State, than Section 25 of the Act obligates the institution to admit 25 percent students from the poor community. So in that respect, it is applicable for every limited purpose. Otherwise, minority educational institutions are exempted from the purview of RTE Act.

You have been heading this institution from a decade. What has been the key achievement of NCMEI under your leadership?
The first achievement is that I have generated awareness among the minorities in general and the Muslims in particular about the importance of quality education. I have also been successful in persuading our Kalma Iqra to introduce modern education in the Madarsas. The greatest achievement of the Commission is to declare the Jamia Milia Islamia as a minority educational institution. In addition, I have granted minority status certificate to two universities from the south established by the Muslim community, one university established by the Christian community and the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University of Rampur. In addition, I granted more than 10,000 minority status certificates to various institutions.

The greatest achievement of the Commission is to declare the Jamia Milia Islamia as a minority educational institution

How important is technical education under the whole sector of education?
One message to my community is that our foundation lies in acquiring a strong knowledge of economics, powered by information technology, innovation and education. The Muslim community must establish a centre of excellence. On the contrary, they are opening teaching shops, which is wrong. They have completely failed in protecting their educational institutions which were established by their forefathers. Minorities cannot be allowed to lower down their educational standards under the guards of the Constitutional protection enshrined under Article 30. They have to establish educational excellence. In south India, the Muslim community has established centres of excellence. They have established good educational institutions. But compared to South India, north India is lacking in everything. Here, they cannot maintain even the educational institution established by their forefathers. This is a very sad commentary.

What are the major road blocks in north India for the minority?
People are not serious about it. Unless they are conscious of their rights, they do not know that they need quality education. There a need of enhancement of quality in education, and the Muslim community is lagging behind.

M Anandakrishnan, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT-Kanpur, talks about the need for accreditation in Indian education

Accreditation for ensuring quality in higher education has been in India for two decades, with bodies like National Assessment and Accreditation Agency (NAAC) for institutional accreditation and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) for programme accreditation. These agencies track the changing national and global accreditation criteria standards and formulate them for the Indian context.
However, many higher educational institutions, including several premier institutions, appear to be uninterested in accreditation. Some look upon accreditation as a status symbol, while some use it as a marketing tool for enticing students.

Autonomy of Accrediting Agencies
It has been suggested that accreditation agencies need to be independent of regulatory bodies. The NBA has set an example by being delinking itself from the regulatory body, All India Council of Technical education (AICTE). NAAC too is becoming autonomous from University Grants Commission (UGC). It is hoped that the medical and law programmes will soon have accredited agencies independent of Medical Council of India (MCI) and Bar Council of India (BCI). Likewise, distance education institutions and programmes need to be accredited by agencies independent of Distance Education Council (DEC).

Mandatory Accreditation
India is moving towards mandatory accreditation of institutions and programmes under UGC and the AICTE. This applies to all universities established or incorporated by, or under a Central, Provincial or State Act, all deemed universities, all institutions including technical institutions, and all colleges including autonomous colleges.
Non-compliance of the mandatory accreditation will lead to the regulatory bodies or funding agencies de-recognising the institution, making them ineligible for financial assistance. Conversely, a higher accreditation may attract higher funding. Employers too prefer graduates from accredited institutions, while getting visas to some countries is easier with qualifications from accredited schools.

Accreditation Objectives
While accrediting an institution, UGC and AICTE do a critical appraisal of the institution’s quality assurance and improvement, assurance that the institutions and programmes meet and exceed the prescribed norms, ensure that the academic aims and objectives of the institution are honestly pursued and effectively achieved, assesses the institution’s ability to maintain the relevance of the programmes during accreditation’s validity period. These objectives aim accord recognition to the quality and excellence of education in higher educational institutions to help students and stakeholders make informed choices, while facilitating the institutions to augment their quality by benchmarking reference points pertaining to academic standards. They also help the institutions in acquiring international recognition, international collaborations, helping the teachers achieve and maintain teaching and research standards. They also help higher educational institutions in introducing governance mechanisms in their management and administration.

Setting the Criteria
The accreditation criterion needs to be comprehensive and include process parameters such as the approach to teaching, learning and evaluation, student-teacher interaction, guidance counselling, and socially relevant activities. It should also include the institution’s management, autonomy, interference, transparency and ethics. It should emphasize the “outcome parameters”.
NAAC and NBA develop the accreditation criteria. These are common to both bodies, and subject to change to reflect the changing ground realities. Care needs to be taken that the criteria do not stifle innovations. The criteria and the processes should be explicitly documented for the benefit of the educational institutions. In this, NBA has set a good example by publicly presenting comprehensive documentation for UG, PG, Diploma, Pharmacy, MCA, MBA courses, along with guidelines for accreditation visits, guidelines for evaluation, manual for self assessment report (SAR) and evaluation report covering Tier-I and Tier-II technical institutions.
The difficulties in defining and evaluating on the criteria are formidable. For instance, it is difficult to assess and quantify the teaching and learning processes and its impact, and so, will need proxy parameters. Also, comparing the quality and impact of teaching across countries is difficult. But despite these difficulties, we must strive to ensure seamless adoption of the accreditation systems.

The Challenges
Considering the large number of universities and colleges and the number of professional programmes they run, mandatory accreditation poses an enormous challenge. It is achievable only by roping in multiple accrediting agencies in various specializations, all following the norms and standards set by an accreditation authority. NAAC can be turned into an accreditation authority for universities and general colleges, and NBA for technical education colleges and technical education departments of universities. We need similar authorities for medicine, law and distance education as well.  When multiple organizations are involved in such a sensitive task, special care is needed to ensure objectivity and credibility. There are so many different accrediting agencies around the world, that some institutions may resort to them in order to avoid mandatory accreditation in India. It is necessary to ensure that respectable foreign accrediting agencies such as Accreditation Board of Engineering and technology (ABET) do not accredit Indian institutions. Recently the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) announced new accreditation standards for business schools. Two Indian private management schools have been accredited by AACSB.
It is also important to prevent the fraudulent ‘Accreditation Mills’ from abroad providing accreditation to gullible Indian Institutions.

“It is hoped that the medical and law programmes will soon have accredited agencies independent of Medical Council of India (MCI) and Bar Council of India (BCI)”

Need for Innovation in Accreditation Process
Established accreditation authorities should accord high priority for evolving a process of accreditation that will eliminate or minimize the need for site visits. This will require designing an online data submission system and developing an analytic programme to process the data according to prescribed norms and standards. Such a system should include severe penalties for furnishing wrong or misleading data by institutions. It system will obviate the need for multiple accrediting agencies.