Equating businesses and educational institutions – A student’s viewpoint

               The ultimate purpose of a business is profit. To make a profit, the business employs people who sweep to people who audit financial statements. Just like in our lives, these businesses also encounter problems that may require an external support and those that give this support are called consultants. These people are well qualified so that they’re able to come up with a strategy, an actionable solution considering all parameters to solve the problem faced by the business. You may equate this to doctor consultations. There are governments that employ consultants to come up with expert advice and strategy to either face a problem or to make their work more efficient. Now that I’ve laid the foundation, I would like to pinpoint the biggest problem I see as a student that’s cancerous for the society: Peers who don’t take education seriously.
              This is the case in majority of colleges, at least in the state where I come from in India. These are mostly Tier 2/3 ranked institutions and we ought to recognize the fact that most of today’s youth are students of these colleges. I’ve been a student of a Tier 1 college (St. Stephen’s, Delhi) where I’ve observed a near flat organizational structure between teachers and students. On the other hand, I’ve my school mates studying in Tier 2/3 colleges reporting a hierarchical structure in the order of Administration > Staff > Students. The college administration follows this in a desperate attempt to follow guidelines and maintain student quality. In my opinion, this does more harm than good and the harm is two fold. I feel it affects both the students and the faculty.
                 If educational institutions were thought of as business organizations with students and faculty as inevitable members of the organization; we would know exactly what to do to increase college performance and process efficiency, we would know how to elicit the desired organizational behavior by facilitating change with both members (students and faculty) of the institution. This is possible by consulting people who have been trained for such tasks. Why is it that educational institutions and the government don’t identify this need? The need for this was identified in businesses long ago. Authoritativeness and enforcement in companies were replaced by effective communication and leadership, coaching and most notably, by making employees feel important and accountable for their contribution. Employees aren’t being forced here but made to feel responsible. Consultants use psychology and data driven techniques to do this. If students were made to feel the same and a flat organizational structure is employed, it would make students realize the commitment and seriousness required for education and would remove a lot of pressure from the faculty’s shoulders. Along with this, driving faculty behavior appropriately towards research and leadership will certainly improve the standards of our educational institutions and the graduates churned out. Applying business tools to colleges is a viable measure to transform the current generation.