DECENTRALISATION IN PRACTICS
[Delegation to Departments . Faculty Councils . Autonomous Advanced
Centres . Autonomous Institute . P.G. Centres Administrative sub-
centres. Autonomous Colleges] The Vice-Chancellor of a University is the principal executive and academic head. He is charged with the responsibility to ensure that the provisions of the Act, Statutes, Ordinances and Regulations are faithfully observed. He is to exercise general control and supervision over all the affairs of the University. He is also empowered to convene the meetings of the Senate / Court, Syndicate / Executive Council and other bodies and is to preside over the Senate in the absence of the Chancellor. The Vice-Chancellor is the Chairman of the Syndicate / Executive Council, Academic Council, the Finance Committee and presides over the meetings of the other bodies or committees of which he is a member. He is also the Chairman of the Selection Committees for the posts of Professors, Readers & Lecturers.
The culture of the University System has so far been such as to reduce the Vice-Chancellor to a stage where most of his time is spent in the disposal of the routine matters. it is highly desirable and essential to remodel the university organisation in such a manner that the Vice- Chancellor is kept out of the routine matters and is made free to concentrate largely on review and monitoring of the existing activities and plan development of the University. It is thus, necessary that the Directors of Institutes, Deans of Faculties/Heads of Departments be given authority and powers and their offices be adequately strengthened to enable them to handle their tasks effectively subsequent to appropriate delegation of the powers.
In the following paragraphs, some suggestions have been made for:-
[1] Delegation of Powers to Departments;
[2] Faculty Councils to deliberate & decide on Academic issues.
[3] Conferring Autonomy to Departments under Special Assistance Programmes [CAS / DSA etc.];
[4] Creation of Autonomous Institutes in the Universities by re-grouping of Departments wherever possible and
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[5] De-centralisation for Collegiate management.
14.0 DELEGATION OF POWERS TO DEPARTMENTS THE DEPARTMENTS OF A UNIVERSITY ARE ITS MAIN AND BASIC OPERATIONAL UNITS AND SHOULD THEREFORE BE ENABLED TO FUNCTION WITH FREEDOM AND WIDER ACADEMIC, ADMINISTRATIVE AND FINANCIAL POWERS.
The Departments may have a formally constituted DEPARTMENTAL COUNCIL and its composition should offer adequate opportunities to all the members of the Department to participate in the management and administration, but they would also require careful coordination and guidance, They should be vested with sufficient powers and responsibilities. This would mean that within limits laid down by bodies such as the Executive Council or Academic Council or Faculty Council, each Department should have the freedom to make its own arrangements, without having to seek the approval of the 'higher authorities at each stage or the administrative intervention of the 'officers' of the university. The objective should be to develop an authority at the level of the department with stronger academic commitments and focus than can be to developed at the higher levels of the University governance.
Each Department should be made fully accountable for its activities directed towards pursuit of excellence, encouraging scholarship, facilitating research and be subject to performance audit periodically by an outside group of experts.
It may be desirable to follow the following broad guidelines in this regard:
[1] All Departments should have the freedom to frame their syllabi, courses of study and examination schemes within the overall frame-work prepared by the Academic Council. Any structural change be subject to their approval.
(2) All Departments should enjoy complete academic freedom, However, Academic Council and Faculty Council should play a coordinating and supervisory role by fixing guidelines which should provide sufficient flexibility to enable individual departments to introduce new ideas.
(3] Financial autonomy should also be given to the departments to enable the Head of the Departments to incur expenditure on sanctioned projects etc. The sanctioned budgets should be transferred to the Departments. The Departmental Councils should have the authority to reappropriate funds within the sanctioned budgets.
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[4] The concerned authorities of the University, i.e., Executive Council/Syndicate or Academic Council should continue to supervise the work of the Department through an appropriate reporting system and ensure that they do not misuse the freedom and are accountable for their powers and responsibilities.
[5] While the appointments of faculty members be made by the Vice-Chancellor's office, recruitment of non-teaching [technical and class-iv] as also of short-term appointments on the projects be made by the Heads of Departments as per guidelines of the University.
There should be a Board of Studies for each subject or discipline catering to undergraduate or/and postgraduate courses. Thus, each Department / Centre / School shall normally have such a Board. The recommendations of the Boards of Studies shall be ratified by the Faculty Council and reported to the Academic Council and where necessary to the Board of Management which may refer some items back for reconsideration by the Faculty, if it so desires. The Faculty shall set up Research Degree Committees and Boards of Examinations for each subject or discipline.
The type of freedom envisaged in the above paragraphs may be given to all the Departments, Centres of Advanced Studies, research units, etc., A separate group in the UGC had delibrated on the theme of autonomous departments and the guide-lines approved by the UGC in this regard are enclosed [Annexure 21].
14.1 FACULTY COUNCILS The existing structure of bringing together departments of different discipline of study within a Faculty / School may continue so that the basic academic concerns related to teaching and research, up-dating the curricula and programmes could be discussed within the Faculty / School to be presided over by the Dean / Chairman of the School. it would be desirable to give them more powers for academic. administrative and financial matters, as per guidelines laid down by the University, to enable the faculties / schools to function more effectively.
Each faculty should have a FACULTY COUNCIL responsible for the entire gamut of teaching, research and extension programmes of the departments within the faculty. It will be a middle level decision making body in which the Dean plays a pivotal role and is responsible to promote interdepartmental cooperation and coordination and acts as a channel of communication between the departments and the highest authority in the university system. Its emphasis
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will be on translating basic policy objectives formulated by the university into workable guidelines for the departments to follow. Except for issues requiring a change in policy, all other matters requiring executive decisions will be dealt with by the Deans and may not be referred to the Pro- Vice-Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor. The Council will function under the Chairmanship of the Dean and in order to enable him to coordinate and monitor the academic functioning of the departments adequate powers and authority will need to be given to him.
The Faculty Council should include beside the Dean, Heads of the Departments concerned, two or three Professors, one Reader and one Lecturer from each Department, one external expert per Department, 3 Professors from other Faculties of the Universities with an officer of the Faculty acting as Secretary.
14.2 AUTONOMOUS CENTRES OF ADVANCED STUDIES It is over two decades since the University Grants Commission conceived Centres of Advanced Studies in Indian Universities. Any Centre of excellence will have to depend on the dynamic and inspiring leadership of a Professor or group of professors and once the choice of the leader is made on internationally accepted norms such a leader should be given full operating freedom for the achievement of the desired results.
A Centre of Advanced Study can function effectively only when it enjoys administrative, academic, organisational, financial and functional autonomy and is managed by its Head.
Each Centre may have a Statutory Body known as the CENTRE'S COUNCIL to function under the Chairmanship of the Vice-Chancellor and, inter- alia, include a. member of the Executive Council / Syndicate, Academic Council from outside the Centre, besides faculty members of the Centre at different levels as also experts in the areas of excellence etc. with the Head of the Centre as its Convener. This Council will be responsible for all administrative, financial and academic matters of the Centre and the recommendations made by this Council will not be ratified further by the Executive Council / Academic Council of the University, as long as they are within the parameters set by these authorities.
In multi-faculty Universities there are various disciplines with varying length of their U.G & P.G. Courses. For instance in the Engineering &,Technology the U.G. Courses are of 4 Years duration and in Medicine the duration is 4 1/2 years and now in law it is 5 years. The P.G. Courses
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in Engineering and Technology are of 1 1/2 years duration, whereas in the Humanities, Social Science Science etc., the U.G. Course is for 3 years and P.G. 2 Years. The pattern of Education and Library Science is also different.
All these variations call for different treatments. Unless Faculty / Departmental autonomy is there, these special problems cannot be easily taken care of. Then again, the size of academic units also varies considerably. The remedy may be in setting up autonomous Institutes.
14.3 AUTONOMOUS INSTITUTES It is possible to structure a university with its units called INSTITUTES devoted to a number of allied subjects or disciplines in one or more faculties. At the Banaras Hindu University, for example, this process of establishing autonomous Institutes has made a start and the following three Institutes have already come into existence, the first in 1971:
Institute of Technology with One Faculty, 11 Departments, 3 Inter-disciplinary Schools, One Centre of Advanced Study and one Sophisticated Instruments Centre, besides a Central Workshop, Central Library etc.
Institute of Medical Science with Two Faculties, over 25 Departments and One Special Laboratory, besides two 750- bed hospitals one for Ayurvedic and another for Allopathic System.
Institute of Agricultural Science with One Faculty, 10 Departments a 1000 hectare Farm over 160 Kms away from its campus, and a few small farms and a. Dairy on the Campus.
There could be more Institutes like Institute of Science, Institute of Social Sciences[including School of Commerce], Institute of Indology, Institute of Language & Literature, Institute of Visual and Performing Arts Institute of Professional Studies [including Law School,School of Education, and School of Management].
An Institute in a University may have one or more faculties, one or more Departments / Centres / Schools and also other academic Units like a Computer Centre, an Instrumentation Centre etc., but all constituent units of the Institute must belong to one broad culture or discipline in the interest of coherence, coordination, optimum use of facilities, efficient administration and quick academic progress. An Institute must also have an optimum size, may be 1000 to 2000 undergarduate and postgraduate students and 100 to 500 teaching, research and technical staff, all sharing the
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common culture. An Institute must have full administrative, academic and financial autonomy, with decentralisation down to each of its constituent units to the extent possible. The Vice-Chancellor, the Registrar and their offices will be concerned with coordination of work in the University and the campus [if the University is residential], and will in no way be involved in the day-to-day work of the Institutes.
Each Institute should have a Board of Management made up of the University's Vice-Chancellor as Chairman, the Institute's Director as Vice-Chairman, the Institute's Registrar as Secretary and with the Deans of Faculties, not more than 10 Heads of Departments / Schools / Centres of the Institute, the University's Registrars [Administration, Evaluation and Finance] four external experts to be nominated by the University's Executive Council for a three-year term, as Members.
The Board of Management shall essentially be a policy-making body, meeting not less than twice a year, and the Director shall implement these policies without any interference from the University Registry.
In universities where departments / faculties are regrouped into autonomous Institutes, the powers and functions of the Dean of the Faculty in relation to the Director of the Institute would need to be clearly defined through Ordinances. In general, the Dean would perform the function of academic coordination and to chair the meetings of the Faculty Council.
The Director of the Institute will have the role of Inter-Faculty coordination for academic purposes and be incharge of overall academic, administrative and financial functions of the Institute. However, in Institute having only one faculty, there need not be two officers. The Director should also function as Dean and preside over Faculty Council meetings.
Each Institute may be headed by a Director, appointed by the Executive Council on the' recommendation of the Vice-Chancellor. The Director may normally be from amongst the senior Professors in the departments concerned or if need be an eminent educationist from outside the University.He will hold the office for a five year term and shall be eligible for another term subject to not more than two terms.
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14.4 AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY POSTGRADUATE CENTRES In the post-independence era, quite a few universities had established postgraduate centres at different places within the jurisdiction of the University concerned. The Universities in the States of Panjab, Tamilnadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are the examples. Most of these Centres became the nuclei for new Universities.
The University Grants Commission has also framed guidelines for assistance to the Universities for their postgraduate centres. A University Postgraduate Centre could be set up only at a place other than the headquarters of the university and is to be allowed academic as well as administrative autonomy. Such a Centre should normally function with a few selected departments, carefully chosen on well- defined needs in Sciences, Humanities, Commerce and Social Science subjects, and the courses offered by them should be distinct and not mere duplication of the courses already offered on the main university campus.
According to the guidelines:
[1] The need for creation of additional facilities for postgraduate education is justified on academic consideration; and
[2] Such a Centre should not function in isolation but should function as a nodal point for purposes of collaboration and in cooperation with the colleges in the immediate vicinity and also help in improving the standards of undergraduate teaching in the colleges by providing opportunities for college teachers to inter- act with Centres / departments in teaching and research activities.
The Committee is of the view that each postgraduate centre be fully autonomous for academic, administrative and financial matters within the framework of the guidelines formulated by the University. It should be headed by a Pro-Vice-Chancellor. Each centre should have a Council to be presided over by a Pro-Vice-Chancellor and including the Heads of the Departments both from the Headquarters and the Centre, few Professors and other teachers from the Centre as also experts from industry, research laboratories and other institutions etc. The decisions of the Council need not be further ratified by the university authorities, if they are within the budgetary limits.
Where the number of Centres is large, the University may have a P.G CENTRE CO-ORDINATING COUNCIL consisting of the Pro-Vice-Chancellors in charge of the Centres besides the Deans of Faculties and Heads of University Departmets
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represented at the Centres. The Council will be presided over by the Vice-Chancellor and would be responsible for coordination, monitoring and laying down broad guidelines and norms for the efficient working of the Post-Graduate Centres.
14.5 DECENTRALISATION FOR COLLEGIATE MANAGEMENT Most of the Universities in India are affiliating. A few of them are federative having Colleges also in a specified area. This system of affiliating Universities was mainly intended to maintain uniform standards in Colleges affiliated to the respective Universities. The Universities did function effectively when the number of affiliated colleges was small and the Universities did not have their own teaching / research departments. But since Independence there has been a vast expansion in the number of Colleges and Universities, as well as number of students in the colleges. Further, the Universities and Colleges are expected to perform many important functions in the context of National Development.