The crisis of leadership

It's a tragedy that we celebrate the fall of institutions in two different ways. Either by keeping mum on their downfall, or deriving sadist pleasure at their fall. Equally tragic is the fact that we celebrate false victory of our institutions as PR managers try to paint their rosy picture.

We also often mistakenly celebrate that our academic institutions are doing fine and figure among the top institutions in the country. This may be true if figures are anything to go by. But there are two other important aspects of this so-called success story. Are our academic institutions really worth this ranking? Is this so-called ranking and grading are enough for the institutions to claim eminence?

Recently, the JK Board of School Education came in poor light over the issue of shortage of textbooks that it was supposed to keep available well ahead of the start of the new academic session.

As if this wasn't enough, the copy-paste replacement of some words in Class X textbook, without any proofreading thereafter, spoke volumes about the BOSE's lackadaisical attitude towards its work.

All this unprofessionalism has a lot to do with lack of competent leadership which has eaten into the vitals of our important institutions concerning the future of students. Same is the case with our universities and colleges, where leadership crisis is more evident.

Take the case of our Universities in Jammu and Kashmir.

For instance the the University of Kashmir no doubt has come a long way in terms of expanding its infrastructure and academic outreach given the increase in the number of departments over the last few decades. But why is it that the University remains in poor light in the eyes of the public and is unable to create a strong imprint at the national level (the  rankings and grading notwithstanding!).

The other side of this success coin needs a dispassionate analysis and an impartial view to plug the rot that has corroded our institutions.  Just enter the University's main campus or any of the offsite campuses, and you will see how strongly this other side of the coin is corroded.

You will find at least 90 percent of new departments opened by the University with all fanfare lacking staff to teach, which, ideally is one of the fundamental requirements for any new department. But when new departments are open either on political considerations or to 'accommodate the favorite and influential', there is hardly a thought given to the fundamental requirements.

Hence, many departments don't have laboratories, many don't have libraries, and many don't even have basic buildings of their own to operate from.

Today we can safely assume that at least half the teaching staff in the University is contractual for the sole reason that it suits the permanent faculty to focus on non-teaching assignments and let the 'contractual labourers' take care of the classes.

Today, the fact is that Kashmir University's admissions in PG courses have dipped by half in comparison to the past few decades.

But this is no news because we are fed the news of grading and ranking that we tend to forget the corroded side of the coin. Today, nearly three dozen teachers of the University are away from their classes for so-called administrative positions.

The point is the decay that has crept into the academic institutions in the last few years, mainly due to leadership failures. Today our institutions like BOSE, our universities and our colleges need strong leaders who can at least focus on managing the administrative affairs well.

Because leadership failure will only take these institutions backwards many years.

The recent controversy involving BOSE was aptly likened by some news reports to "4th Idiot" invoking the character named "Chatur" in the famous Amir Khan starrer 3 Idiots.