The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calicut, M. Abdul Salam, while striving for the growth of the university, worries that his energy, time and attention are being taken by things that ought to be managed by his subordinates.
As the chief executive of an institution of higher learning, the Vice-Chancellor should lend his expertise and experience to apex-level planning and decision-making, Dr. Salam believes.
Although enhancing the quality of the institution is on top of his agenda, his attempts to revamp the administration system have engaged him quite tightly. His attempts to take his subordinates into confidence are yet to yield the results intended. Some have responded bitterly, some rather cantankerously.
But Dr. Salam believes that his employees can be convinced of the importance of channelling their energy for the benefit of the entire academic community. He believes that changes are required in all sections on the campus — right from the faculty level to the security level. A change in attitude to work has become the crying need.
The choice-based credit system introduced two years ago at the college level has begun to take its toll by way of pressuring the university examination system. “When the system (choice-based credit and semester system) was introduced in colleges, the decision-makers did not realise the magnitude of the energy required for its management,” Dr. Salam says.
The university offers 14 major degrees, with 409 undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes. Without depending on modern technology, Dr. Salam says, it is hard to conduct internal and external examinations every six months, evaluate and re-evaluate the answer scripts, and publish the results of the 409 programmes in a smooth and timely fashion.
Dr. Salam says the digital system introduced in January will ease the pressure on the university.
The Vice-Chancellor advocates that teachers should be made to evaluate their students, as is done widely in developed countries. “For that, we need to have persons of integrity,” he says.
The system of giving 90-95 per cent marks to all students in internal evaluation should go. “This system indicates that there is some abnormality,” he says.
Dr. Salam says that internal assessment can be strengthened and improved by close supervision. “When we place a good system, the students themselves will come forward to report any abnormality,” he says. “A teacher with integrity is the biggest asset of a university.”
Dr. Salam avers there will be no compromise of quality in faculty appointments. “I will never permit any dilution in faculty recruitment,” he says.
The Vice-Chancellor admits that there is a crying need to enhance the quality of the faculty.
“In fact, we need people with the right wavelength to absorb technology,” he says. He agrees that the university, with 54 constituent colleges and 304 affiliated colleges with 31 postgraduate centres and more than three lakh students, has a huge mandate of meeting the basic needs of higher education.
Therefore, he says, the university will concentrate on general education, quality research, and transfer of knowledge to the community. Sixty per cent of the faculty time will be devoted to general education, 30 per cent to research, and 10 per cent to extension or community services.
