Directors of B-schools like the IIMs have expressed their anxiety about acquiring good faculty to teach the plethora of management subjects to their hand-picked students. B-schools need to have a certain minimum number of full-time faculty members. They try to ensure quality teaching by inviting veterans in various fields as visiting faculty. As B-schools strive to attract the best teaching faculty so as to have an edge over competitors, deciding the correct mix of full-time and visiting faculty becomes crucially important. Since any B-school is assessed by the trio of faculty, placements and infrastructure, it?s obvious that cut-throat competition happens on all the three fronts?wooing teachers and companies, and spending huge amounts on infrastructure.
However, B-schools across the nation are faced with a shortage of qualified and experienced faculty today. How to address this problem? The answer lies in having properly designed faculty development programmes. Let me explain.
Unlike a few decades back, nowadays, youngsters do opt for the teaching profession either due to a passion for teaching or the challenge involved. The decent pay-scales, especially after the Sixth Pay Commission, help make this choice. But there still is a persistent gap between the demand for and supply of good teachers. That?s partly due to the mushrooming of a large number of cash-rich B-schools across the country. It is also a function of choices, eligibility criteria and reforms in the education sector. This needs to be elaborated at three levels: qualifications, knowledge and skills.
Today, a person with first class at MBA is eligible to become a management faculty. This is like a graduate with a first-class degree teaching undergraduate students. Often, it?s found that a fresh MBA doesn?t have adequate knowledge to teach specialised MBA courses. Ideally, a teacher should have studied much beyond the level at which he teaches. Introduction of a rigorous MPhil, in lieu of a PhD, would solve this problem. MPhil curriculum must be designed to impart advanced knowledge of ethics, management philosophy and all specialisations as well as prepare the candidate in research methodology as a stepping stone towards a PhD eventually.
That said, a person?s knowledge is not necessarily related to her academic qualifications alone. Degrees and marks can at best be a rough indicator of one?s abilities. Teaching is probably the only field where constant expansion, updating and enrichment of knowledge are absolutely essential. As conventional wisdom has it, life would stop if the learning process stops. The need to update and enrich the knowledge of the faculty can be met by conducting regular refresher courses on a wide range of subjects by experts. The quest for knowledge must come from within and anyone interested in the teaching career must do a lot of serious reading, attend relevant lectures, debates, seminars, etc. Certainly, for a one-hour lecture, the teacher must prepare her topic well and thoroughly to last for two hours.
The possession of a lot of knowledge and wisdom, however, doesn?t ensure good teaching skills. For that, one must also have good communication skills; empathy, patience and ability to reach down to the student?s level. In order to develop teaching skills, ?teachers? training workshops? may be organised and teaching skills of lectures critically assessed. The pedagogic variations could be many. To name a few, in a ?talk? method, the faculty adopts a one-way communication. In the case study method, the faculty can distribute a case study, initiate discussions in groups and analyse it by connecting it to the pre-discussed theories. Another participative method is to prepare a set of questions to be thrown open to students, and as they answer, jot down relevant points on the board and then show them how the theory emerges from those points. Some faculty might use PowerPoint presentations, but ideally not more than four slides should be used in a clock-hour, with no more than ten words per slide. Video films can also make lectures interesting. Person-to-person communication is always most effective. Sometimes, the lecturer may dictate a few points to break the monotony of her talk and give students breathing space to allow a difficult concept to ?sink in?. Students? queries may be solved at the end of the lecture so that the link doesn?t break.
Thus, a good faculty development programme (FDP) must have a definite objective and seek convergence between various streams of knowledge and skills, targeted separately for the greenhorns in the field, and the veterans. Some institutes and universities make FDPs compulsory. But then, directors might organise them mainly for the record. An FDP that can?t take faculty and institute to the next level is quite a waste of time and resources. In the US, ?teaching retreats? are often organised, where select faculty members from different streams come together in an outbound programme to learn from each other various teaching methods, current developments and related issues. We can certainly emulate this practice.
Attracted by huge salaries in higher education and disillusioned with corporate lifestyle, many brilliant youngsters are turning to teaching. Hence, faculty development has become crucial, and we may see new institutions coming up to undertake this task. An ideal FDP must stir curiosity; connect the syllabi to every faculty’s quest for knowledge, weave individual aspirations into their institute?s goals and link these goals to the task of nation-building which rests on good teachers at all levels.
The author is professor at Sinhgad Business School, Pune. Email: shubhadasabade@hotmail.com