Five Secrets of a Top Grade faculty

Higher education in India has experienced mushroom growth in past two decades. It has entered the consolidation phase already. Although most of the expansion has come from privately run institutes but considerable growth has taken place in public sector also. Few corporate have also entered education domain but largely for the CSR reasons than motivated by the mission to create a world class institutions. You could judge the priority & importance the governments in India lay on the education sector by the very fact that the MHRD don’t have put up 2017 data on its website as on May 24, 2017. The website mentions “As of 2014, there are 677 universities, 37,204 colleges and 11443 stand-alone institutions in India”.

It’s universally accepted that the quality of faculty is the most critical factor for imparting top grade education. Curriculum, Infrastructure, network and technology comes after the basic need good quality faculty. Those who have the opportunity to study from high quality faculty possess expert level skills to contribute to the profession they undertake. Anyone can be a great faculty if she/he could acquire the expertise in the following 5 factors and demonstrate it frequently.

Subject Grasp: Everyone thinks her/his grasp over the subject/s is absolutely fine till s/he put it to test. Therefore it’s recommended that the faculty must test own domain knowledge at least once every three years by solving the examination paper given to the students. The institute and the government could also make it mandatory for teachers to take a test periodically.

Domain Knowledge: Education is multidisciplinary and each subject shares concepts, tools and principles with wide variety of other subjects. Therefore it’s imperative that the faculty must be encouraged to develop expertise in a gamut of subjects required for effective teaching. Many subjects particularly from science and professional arena can’t be understood properly if a faculty lacks the field experience. A doctor without practice in a hospital would make a lousy faculty of medicine. Similarly engineering and management also put same demands on the faculty.

Communication skill: Most often it’s recommended that a faculty must have excellent communications skills. Well it’s desired that the faculty must be able to speak fluently the language understandable by the students but more critical communication skill for a faculty are reading and writing than the speech. World class faculty should be able to read and understand complex papers, journals and also write in concise clear manner.

Empathy: Good faculty must empathies with students and be able to behave like the students in the classroom.  Knowledge can be transferred easily if the learner trusts the teacher. Moreover a faculty good or bad leave an impression on the audience and also influence the personality of students. Faculty could strive to understand the psyche and group behavior of the class one intends to handle. The faculty needs to win confidence of students for positive learning outcomes.

Grasp of Edutech: No faculty can claim to plough the lone furrow in internet dominated world of education. Therefore a great teacher must work hard continuously to catch up with the technical expertise of the students. I would recommend that every faculty must be a step ahead of the students on handling edutech so as to inspire the students.

How to raise funds for the Universities in India?

India is incomparable to the west on most counts including quality of the education. Higher-Education in India is in sharp decline unlike USA where it is improving by the day. Whereas the private education enterprises are funded almost entirely by the students’ fees, the public universities run on government grants in India but not so in the west.

Though many Industrial houses have ventured into education but the hullaballoo about lack of skills among the graduates remains the chartbuster since last decade. Has the education system really failed to inculcate skills amongst the students? Many imagine so. Well those who are convinced about it generally blame it on the lack of funds, research grants available to the universities in India. Is it impossible to raise funds for universities in an economy which continues to grow at a healthy seven plus rate?

Universities which offer MBA/PGP programs can ask their Management faculty to plan and lead the task of marketing the institutes to stake holders for fund raising. If management faculty can train the students to become managers to contribute to the growth of commerce & technology in India they sure can help their institutes meet its challenges.

Universities produce opinion leaders therefore their economic footprint is not limited to those who earn a degree from its precincts. Marketers understand the value of opinion leaders and are eager to win over their confidence. A University campus offers widest congregation of opinion leaders in a single place which could be a prime target for any astute advertiser. Moreover universities can plan many strategic events and research projects which could attractive to the industry & commerce.

In the present form the universities in India lack a dedicated marketing team that could bridge the gap between industry and academia which could generate funds for the universities. Though the task can well be delegated to the Commerce & Management faculty if few industry experienced faculty exists on the campus. There is huge potential for any university to generate more revenue by bridging the gap between industry and academia.

Need for Branding Higher Education

You would agree that the self financing universities & technical education institutes, both private & public, in India are going through consolidation phase post a rapid mushroom growth. Due to slowdown of economy, intense competition & regulatory bottlenecks many higher education players are facing serious challenges. Continuous decline in student intake numbers & rising costs require immediate solutions for the long term survival of this critical sector of economy.

Though corporatization of education in India has yet not been allowed but many major education brands are using commercial marketing principles, concepts & tools to attract students & other stake holders to them. But most institutes are unable to benefit from strategic marketing due to absence of a full time marketing director to take care of this critical function. The regulatory bodies of higher & professional education, UGC, AICTE, MCI etc, not only discourage use of marketing but also don’t make it mandatory for all self financing institutes to employ a professional marketing manager on the campus. How can an education enterprise succeed without proper marketing in the times when religion to politics use marketing to further their cause?

Every self financing education enterprise must either have an in-house marketing team or outsource the critical task to some outside professional agency. To fill this very gap, AnahadMC offer services to assist your management in creating & implementing of a customized marketing strategy.

Major challenge facing this sector is lack of branding. Despite existence of private players in education sector at all levels for a considerable long period in India not many private institute have been able to create brand equity higher than that of public sector autonomous institutes. The problem of branding in not peculiar to education sector alone, it’s pervasive in other commercial & not for profit enterprises as well. The mother of all questions is how to create a brand in the education sector? Let us admit that the advertising is not the chief vehicle for marketing in all the marketing scenarios.

 It’s well accepted that unless an institute presents itself as a brand to the students it may have to struggle a lot to be the first preference for the brand conscious youth of 21^st century India. Branding exercise is a critical factor in success or failure of institutes with full & partial enrolment record as market forces continue to change the game each year.

Some characteristics that determine the brand equity of an education enterprise:

1.   Years in operation

2.   Size of campus

3.   Placements

4.   Affiliations

5    International relations

6.   Faculty quality

7.   Number of courses

8.   Affiliations

If you want to go beyond the generic factors to create a differentiated brand for your enterprise that fits seamlesly to the target please drop us an email at anahadmc@gmail.com and we would get back to you within one working day. Let's make India an education powerhouse. 

Higher Education & Global Education in India

We still await the government green signal to entry of global education organisations into India. Once they arrive it would sure change the domestic market dynamics as happened in other sectors like electronics & auto etc. Its time that local education organisations prepare for the battle ahead. Once global competition hits services sector in India the customers can look forward to mush better quality & availability of services.The professional education sector would be particularly hit hard initially unless they pull up their socks in right earnest.

Firstly the quality of the service has to be improved. That would involve putting together good faculty, content, pedagogy/andragogy, technology, & interactivity besides building and official approvals. Good quality faculty is certainly in short supply therefore this has to be managed strategically through guest or part time faculty route. First of all the promoters must allow the directors/principals some little role in the functioning of the institute. Current scenario in the privately run universities & institutes is very serious with as most,perhaps all, the directors/principals are appointed for AICTE/UGC purpose only. Its a pity that so called leading academicians accept such jobs with high flown pragmatism & prudence. Otherwise its sick.

Content & delivery in classroom needs to be looked at very closely. We have talk down one way  method of teaching with no interaction at all. The faculty must take prepared content into the class and allow free discussions. The content must be updated & must reflect the present technical/managerial status of the fields under study. Fundamentals of the disciplines must be introduced to the students. For example MBA students must be informed about the real macro industry profile of India so that they can appreciate the nature of work opportunities available. Same could be done for the global markets.

Most students seek professional education not because they have aptitude for it and they want to pursue study of that field, most students are forced to join professional education for the sole aim of finding a job. What an institute can do? In the short run, focus on developing the students' aptitude as far as possible in the current field of study and in the long run the institute could make aptitude test a compulsory requirement for admission.

Higher education organisations do not have to restrict themselves to proximity criteria for student enrollments, i would recommend that such firms must vigorously focus on complimentary markets for growth. This would require creating a central admissions team that takes care of all students enrollments in a strategic manner.

Marketing would have to be the cornerstone of success in any scenario. An education enterprise that works on its marketing would benefit hugely. A tailored marketing campaigned would be needed to weather the churning after mushroom growth. Different institutes would have to develop & adopt  a suitable strategy for attracting students & delivering value to the customers for success in the competitive market.

ICC of Management Education in India

New session of PGDM/MBA for the 2010-12 batch has begun at number of B-schools. Once again the faculty would appraise the students about whatever has happened in the corporate war games till now & what they expect in future. The faculty & students would once more cross their intellectual swords in the classrooms to suggest various new moves & attitudes to handle business game plan in an efficient manner.

The mother of all questions facing a student would be how to approach the learning at the PGDM/MBA program? I believe the greenhorns in the MBA has onerous responsibility to gather the information/Intelligence about the industry sector in which they wish to pursue their career, appreciate the Corporate profiles of the major players in global & domestic market and develop competencies to be approach a situation in a creative manner.

A student must select a broad sector of industry for intensive learning about its regulatory environment, business processes and the SWOT profile. It would be ideal if you focus on your domain as at the entry level there wouldn’t be much scope of work for a generalist executive.  Gather all important data about the sector of your choice in general.

Follow it up with intensive study of major domestic & global players in the industry sector of your choice. Go to their websites, access the Company reports and rummage through their associations & trade bodies agenda. This would help you understand their strategic importance and nature.

Foremost you must be able to develop your creative abilities to the maximum. In the age of google, a smart executive need not bother about information availability as much as the ability to use that information in a creative manner to put together a new solution.  A smart executive has to be more creative than the counterpart in the new post info revolution era.

Thats what i call ICC of management education in India.

Branding Challenges for an Education Enterprise

Privatization of higher education in India has presented a challenge for the brand pundits & the business owners alike. How do we identify a brand promise and equity so that customer loyalty & brand image can be created? Several large education providers have increased their media spend to get greater share of voice, heart & mind. But most of them end up promising almost same equity. Therefore the challenge is to achieve differentiation based on certain deliverables of great value to the customer & provides a certain barrier for the competition.

Higher education ‘brands’ in India suffer from regional weakness that is completely out of sync with the global reality. Therefore majority of the brands advertise for their assumed local footprint without factoring in a pan India appeal.  Strangely the education sector in India has been allowed to work as a not-for-profit business therefore its formal corporatization has not happened with intensity. Certainly most organsiations in education service sector operate for profit motive only. This leads to overt presentation of organization as a charity/trust aiming to promote a socio-religious cause & covertly looking to create wealth by all means.

I am amazed at the kind of names one comes across in this sector. You have institutes named after gods & goddess, castes, persons etc, there are very few such organizations that have neutral names. Education open minds & promotes new thinking challenging the existing world view but still lots of organizations in this trade operate under traditional names.

Most of the brands in this sector swear by the following characteristics:

1.       Years in operation

2.       Size of campus

3.       International relations

4.       Faculty quality

5.       Number of courses

6.       Affiliations

7.       Placements

Therefore we have institutes after institutes advertising about their placement record, Size of campus, number of students on campus and/or leadership. How does a student benefit in her/his studies if there are thousand more students in the campus? How many students can the IIMs boast of?

During PG level & professional studies students focus intensely on the study ignoring their sporting & other recreational activities. So how could a large campus be a magnet for a student? If you build your institute around the personality of one individual promoter how could you satisfy diverse group of students with one single personality?

Higher education brands must keep secular names to appeal wider audience. Such brands must develop equity in a particular academic field and discipline to create top branding. There is opportunity to associate with a glamorous sport to create image. You would do well by promoting values like team work as against promoting leaders. Higher education organizations must look for new identity in order to keep continuous interest of student.

Why there is no IIM or IIT in private sector?

Privatization of higher education in India has not achieved the same results as we see in school education sector. The private schools have created a great redoubtable reputation over the state schools but in the higher education the dominance of the state institutions is still growing despite existence of competition from the private sector for over two decades. Recently the HRD minister Kapil Sibal has made a lot of good noise about giving more freedom to the private institutions from layers of regulatory bodies like UGC, AICTE, & Medical Council etc. But what ails the private sector institutions particularly in professional & technical education category?


The brightest students still seem to prefer IITs, AIMS & IIMs therefore companies in search of them end up on those campuses only. Those who swear by this argument are discounting the rationale of the privatization itself. I believe the privatization of the education has happened because most of us believe that prevailing examination dominated system fails to do justice with large numbers of bright students who could not make it to the existing institutes. Therefore new institutes are required. Most teachers and others involved in education management that I have interacted with agree that quality of students that enroll in private sector is almost at par with those who score very high score to enter the reputed existing institutions.

Second most important factor in an educational enterprise is the quality of teachers. Let us take a cue from the quality of teachers in reputed private schools as compared to government run schools. Isn’t it markedly qualitative? My experience of the 4-5 private & state run higher education enterprises has led me to believe that faculty in state run institutions have greater exposure & learning opportunities on the job. The on- the- job exposure factor is the major differentiator in up-gradation of the quality of teachers. Private institutes generally hire faculty at less cost as compared to the state run which limits their chances of selection & retention of senior faculty, hence reduced quality of teaching and resulting poor education of the students. Faculties in private institution have less learning opportunities in general and lack educated charismatic leadership required for their development. Give me good teachers I will give you shining educated persons.

I will right about other reasons in due course.