‘Chirgish’ University: How Valley’s highest chair of learning is losing sheen

The eleventh-hour postponement of interviews for the post of assistant professor by the Kashmir University authorities smacks of total mismanagement that seems to have plagued the highest chair of learning. That some “administrative issues” cited for the postponement cropped up at the eleventh hour looks more of an “administrative mess” that actually should have been cited, to be honest and truthful. If the Vice-Chancellor of a University wasn’t competent enough to hold the interviews at the fag-end of her career—as is the case with other universities—why were the interviews lined up in the first place? Why were the candidates called in from as far as Jammu or Delhi to sit in the interviews and made to dish out their hard-earned money for travel, boarding and lodging? Why weren’t the “administrative issues” sorted out in advance?

If anything there is to blame for this fiasco, is the Vice-Chancellor’s inability to govern well. Because this is not for the first time the selection process has been aborted for one or the other reason. According to the candidates, it was the new reservation policy and then the code of conduct which were cited for delaying the selection process, which was advertised twice in the last three years. The inability of the VC-led administration to pull up socks and complete the selection process in time speaks volumes about the depths of ineptness the University has plunged into. And in the process, it is the students and applicants who have to bear the brunt of this mismanagement.

It is not only the interview fiasco which has brought the University in bad light. The reports of steep decline in admissions for various postgraduate programmes, the fall in the University’s NIRF rankings, the absence of a credible selection process, the mechanism of in-charge arrangement for various administrative positions—all point to the larger malaise in the University in the last three years. And this is fraught with the danger of dwindling the University’s prospect of progressing in the areas of academics and research.

The University boasts of its lofty vision and mission on its website. But if mismanagement and chaos persist to be the order of the day, it will only impair realizing that vision and mission. The University is in need of a strong leadership, and an equally strong overseeing mechanism by the offices of Chancellor and pro-Chancellor so that it doesn’t lag behind in keeping pace with other universities which are on path to embrace new fields like artificial intelligence.

The University recently held the ‘Chirgish festival’ in the lawns of the management studies department. While the ‘objectives’ of such an initiative were unclear, the concerned head of the department went public saying the varsity wanted to provide a platform for entrepreneurship for the Valley’s youth. If this (the installation of food and shawl stalls) is the vision that the University wants its students to look at, then the University requires a massive overhaul to be able to catch up with the entirely new world of innovations. Possibly, the management studies department may do well to see how IIMs in the country are working on innovations to give an entirely different academic flight to their students. Perhaps the curriculum of the management studies department needs the much-awaited review, alongside its faculty that needs to sharpen its skills to better understand the concepts of entrepreneurship and innovations.

The Offices of the Chancellor and Pro-Chancellor need to immediately review the functioning of the University, conduct an academic audit of its programmes, restore the administrative semblance and pass strict instructions to the University authorities to focus on its mission and mission that only seem to be fading with every passing day. If students feel dejected with management as far as sudden postponement of interviews, there is no reason why the University authorities should take a moral high ground and step aside. There is no excuse for harming the students’ interests—howsoever high an authority in the University might be. It is time for a radical transformation of the University at the leadership level.