Saturday, February 27, 2010
Importance should be given to faculty development: Sherigara


Shimoga: Vice-Chancellor of the Kuvempu University B.S. Sherigara said on Friday that it was difficult to provide quality education unless colleges were strengthened. He was speaking after inaugurating a two-day convention of the Federation of Teachers’ Councils of Commerce and Management in Karnataka on “Enabling new age competencies in building education - a global perspective” organised in association with the Kuvempu University Commerce and Management Teachers’ Forum and the Department of Postgraduate Studies and Research in Commerce of the university.

Stating that quality business education would lay the foundation for business schools to emerge as the new centres of excellence, he said that the quality of education being imparted by most private colleges had left much to be desired.

He said: “The problem is how to improve the quality of education being imparted by colleges to the level of world class business schools.” He sought freedom for private colleges in academic and administrative matters.

Prof. Sherigara referred to the dearth of competent teaching staff in business schools and said that the posts had to be advertised repeatedly to attract qualified teachers. Importance should be given to faculty development. While preparing the curriculum for business education by incorporating contents from the U.S. and Japanese modules, it was necessary to see that the local context was not overlooked.

He emphasised the need for encouraging private initiative to improve higher education with a view to increasing the enrolment of students from 11 to 20 per cent. It was not possible for the Government alone to achieve it, he said.

He hoped that the conference would throw light on emerging dynamics of business education. Member-Secretary of the State Higher Education Council B.R. Ananthan, who released a souvenir to mark the occasion, expressed concern that business education was moving at a terrible speed and it was often found going off the track.

He said it was surprising that the United States was the only country which produced a large number of Nobel Laureates in Economics. But none of them could forewarn the impending danger of global turbulence and economic meltdown which affected that country badly.

He emphasised the need for business educators to follow ethics. The federation should frame a code of conduct for business teachers. “Business with ethics is a service and such a service leads to profit,” he said. It was not enough if consumers were satisfied. “We should aim at their delight as well,” he said.

Mr. Ananthan referred to the proposed move to introduce a common regulatory body for higher education and said it was better to put the UGC and AICTE on the right path as they had been faulted with bringing in no regulation or more regulations.

Managing Director of Xchanging Solutions Nimish Soni, who delivered the keynote address, said that industries and universities should work collectively for better results in higher education.