Without a goal oriented system of education, a society cannot realize its socio-politico-economic objectives. To accomplish the ideals, the quality education imparted by academic organizations has to be enhanced. Whether there is improvement over the years, these organizations ought to be annually subjected to Academic Performance Audit. Knowing about Academic Performance Audit merits a brief mention. Academic Performance Audit verifies and validates the processes used by academic organizations to enrich the quality of their programmes with due focus on strategies employed. The intent is to monitor quality through preset guidelines for faculty as well as students and see that competent graduates and researchers are made available to society. Be it recalled that academic organizations are engaged in creation, dissemination and extension of knowledge in different intellectual disciplines. Business Education is one of such disciplines that provide technocrats to varied segments of society. Of course, Commerce Education is the forerunner or mother discipline of Business Education that trains people and enhances their accounting and managerial capabilities through case studies/methods in real-life situations.
With the establishment of Islamia College of Science and Commerce, Hawal, Srinagar in 1961, the Commerce Education was started in Kashmir for the first time. This reflects the vision of the then governance as this area has been mostly inhabited by the artisans, craftsmen, construction and farm workers. For its contribution to the state domestic product through handlooms, handicrafts and horticulture sectors the old city also known as ‘Shahri Khass’ is famous from times immemorial. Initially the faculty for imparting Commerce Education was invited from outside the state. The prominent amongst the commerce academics have been Dr Wajih-u-Din Jeelani (Accounting and Taxation), Dr Shani-i-Haider Naqvi (Business Management and Secretarial Practice), Dr Syed Raza Hashim (Economics and Business Statistics), Dr Mehfuz-ur-Rahman (Banking and Currency), Dr Nisar Ahmad (Accounting and Financial Management), Dr Nizam-U-Din (Hindi), Mr Ajmal Ajmali (Urdu), etc. Three years later, Mr Chuni Lal Trisal (Auditing and Business Laws) a local, also joined the college as a faculty member. The first batch of prominent students who completed their BCom programme through this premier institution comprised Khurshid Ali, Peerzada Latief followed by Khurshid A Khan.
With the realization of added utility and more acceptability of this programme, the state authorities redrew the map of Business Education which started flourishing as an academic/professional discipline in the valley. Eventually the process of expansion started when this branch of knowledge was introduced in other colleges as well in late 1970s. The first institution to offer Commerce with the combination of Social Sciences as one of the subjects (then popularly called Langda Commerce) was Government College for Women, MA Road Srinagar. This unnecessarily created a lot of confusion. Hence, as a full-fledged stream, this area of education started finding its roots in other college like Government College for Women Nawakadal, Government Degree College Bemina, Government Degree College Anantnag, Government Degree College Baramulla and Government Degree College Spore, etc. At the moment, this stream is taught in almost every college of Kashmir Valley. However, at masters’ level the Department of Commerce was launched by the University of Kashmir in early 1970s. In pursuance of academic goals, the Business Education was diversified when BBA, MBA, MFC, MTM, BCom (Vocational) and BCom (Hons) were introduced at different colleges and universities in Kashmir. In view of the current global scenario, the significance of these programmes is self-evident.
Being a part of the system with a varied teaching/research experience spanning over three decades, the writers have made numerous observations such as:
In the past, some best practices were established in Business Education. Before convening Board of Studies Meetings, Interactive Workshops were organized and business academics from colleges and university departments would deliberate upon content development, transaction strategies, evaluation process, study material, course objectives, learning experiences, learning outcome, etc. These workshops would lead to the flow of new ideas giving Business Education an inevitable edge. But as of now, short cuts are being adopted and healthy past practices have been done away with. As a sequel to it, the curriculum development is hit adversely;
The pedagogy adopted is flawed and mostly teacher-centred. The academics are syllabi-oriented and the thrust is only on content coverage. Unless student-centric instruction strategies are put to practice and learners are provided space for raising how and why questions, the quality education would be a distant dream. Hence, there is a need to reactivate Business Clubs, Accounting Labs, Boardrooms, Mock Parliaments, etc. to enrich the teaching-learning process;
A number of PhDs have been awarded so far. Dissertations are spread over to hundreds of pages. However, the theses built have not found global concurrence primarily because there is no addition to existing fund of knowledge as these reveal only statement of facts;
Business academics in Kashmir publish variety of papers in reputed journals. However, until now not even a single paper has found its place in Harvard Business Review;
The system has exploited Altman, Covey, Drucker, Fayal, Kotler, Markowitz, Marshal, Maslow, Pacioli, Porter, Smith, Taylor and the like in the class room and verified their models. But business academics (including these writers) have not been able to discuss any one amongst themselves for any idea generation or concept development;
UGC-Human Recourse Development Centre, University of Kashmir, has failed in achieving its academic goals. The resource persons as well as the participants are interested in stereotype transactions. The recourse persons do not keep current with the global changes to motivate participants and search for new knowledge in their respective areas. The participants, on the other hand, are more interested in getting certificates of participation that facilitate their placement and promotion;
Usually one third of the course content is transacted through Case Studies in a class room setting. Business Cases from unknown environment (foreign) are being taken up for discussions not suited to the local conditions. In an effort to gain competitive advantage, none of the universities in the valley has so far conducted any Case Writing Workshop. Consequently, faculty has not been able to develop expertise in Case Formulation and Analysis. This naturally does not pave the way for Role Play and Brain Storming Sessions to support Case Studies in class room discussions;
The primary focus of academia is to generate ideas. Same is true with business academics. The incubation of ideas takes place in an academic organization for utilization in policy formulation at state level and execution in industry. Conversely, the practice adopted is that industry entrepreneurs are invited to deliberate upon basic concepts rather the benefits accrued from the execution of ideas put forth by the academia;
The business academics lack industry exposure. They do not stay in industry and study its problems. Hence, they do not offer consultancy support to any enterprise as the practice is in vogue elsewhere. The composition of Godbole and Rangarajan Committees are eye-opener for all; and
The Business Education is a comprehensive and complex discipline as course coverage is inter-disciplinary in nature. This calls for Team Teaching-a good blend of academics, professionals, practitioners-which needs to be adhered to so as to reap the real academic dividends.
To conclude based on aforesaid discussion; Academic Performance Audit may be adopted in other disciplines as well like Architecture, Engineering, Languages and Literature, Medicine, Science and Technology, Social Sciences, Teacher Education and so on. This would certainly go a long way in improving the quality of these programmes for sustainable educational development in current global environment. As responsible citizenry, academic organizations are also expected to contribute to the welfare schemes (like promotion of health, education, ecology, community welfare, etc.) in their immediate neighbourhood, environs in which they operate and society at large. Lastly, there is an urgent need to develop, nurture, nourish and promote ethical standards to sensitize learners and society towards greater emphasis on human values, good thoughts, virtuous deeds, decent principles, ethical behavior and benefits of being fair, honest and right in daily dealings.
(This article is dedicated to late Dr Wajih-u-Din, Founder of Commerce Education in Kashmir(
Writers are former Commerce Teachers
manshah7@redifffmail.com, gilkarna@rediffmail.com, mahajan27@rediffmail.com