Coimbatore: Faculty in institutions can play a vital role in institution-building by addressing the needs of various stakeholders, Sunil Abrol, Director General, Consultancy Development Centre, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India, said here on Saturday.

According to a press release, he was addressing a seminar on “Role of faculty members in institution-building and their preparedness” at Kumaraguru College of Technology.

“Every institution has to don a combination of roles to meet the needs of various stakeholders. Only those institutions which can make their people perform effectively become successful”, he added.

Recalling his tenure at the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) in the 1980’s under the leadership of Sam Pitroda, he said it was a time when technologies in the telecom space in India were all imported. The C-DOT identified that the core challenge was not technology, but a management to facilitate people to do their best.

It formulated the right policies, gave facilities such as R & D laboratories and libraries which were open round the clock and the new culture brought about a sense of involvement among the scientists resulting in high levels of success. Similarly, to get the best in academics, institutions must give adequate freedom and facilities to faculty members which would motivate them to perform.

Dr. Abrol said that the faculty members had to meet the needs of various stakeholders such as students, academics, industry, society and the institution.

“The role of teaching is not only in finishing the portions in time but in effectively transferring the learning from the classroom to the workplace.”

He also advised the faculty that making students understand concepts and helping them develop different applications for industry and society was important.

“Employers always love to get people who are operational from day one. This calls for faculty looking closely at industrial needs and preparing students with additional inputs beyond the curriculum to make them readily employable. Currently only 50 per cent of the students passing out of BE and MCA courses in the country are employable”, he lamented.

He suggested that an increased emphasis on relevant research by the faculty was also desirable.

“We should move towards the American model where the teaching faculty spends 80 per cent of time on research and 20 per cent time on teaching.”

He pointed out that funding was not a problem for application research as the Central Government had several schemes.

“It is estimated that only 50 per cent of funds allotted by the University Grants Commission for faculty development is used each year and this trend needs to be reversed,” he asserted.

Consulting was another important area that the faculty should get into in a big way and institutions aiming for excellence could develop a consultancy wing which would have a revenue sharing model with the faculty.

“In the US, most of the funding for salaries and research of teaching faculty comes from the industry as they are benefited.”

The faculty must also pay attention to publishing technical papers in journals and become spokesman /opinion maker in his chosen field.

Dr. Abrol underlined the need for adhering to the core values of the institution in all activities which increased the prestige of the institution adding value to the faculty.

K. Natesan, General Manager, Sakthi Finance Ltd., welcomed the gathering. M. Balasubramaniam, Correspondent, KCT, and A. Selvakumar, Joint Correspondent, spoke.

Courtesy - Hindu