Tata-Dhan Academy: PDM

Dear Moderator,

Below is a note on ‘Academic’ Institutions written as a response to few questions from a fellow T-DA graduate. The note is followed by the questions. Request you to make this a separate post under development dialogue:

Dear Vinod,

Interesting mail from you on Academic Institutions and all the best for your noble intention of starting an academic institution. True to the spirit of any academic discussion and pursuit, I am not attempting to give any answers here. But, please see below few thoughts from me:

a) Please first find out what is meant by an ‘Institution’ . Wikipedia has the most comprehensive definition. I am not sure if those from the recent batches of T-DA had this good fortune – but when we were there we had a full class on such terms and their definitions, which taught me that an institution is beyond the brick and mortar premises or way beyond an organization. For example there is a meaning when we say ‘Marriage is an Institution’ or ‘the great Indian democracy is an institution’ . What does Institution mean, if the above sentences are meaningful? Once you start to understand this, you will approach the word ‘Academic Institution’ also differently.

b) I am also gradually growing up to comprehend the full meaning of ‘Institution’ . But ever since Prof. Ranjit Gupta mentioned us about some of the great institution builders of modern, independent India, I wanted to be an ‘Institution builder’ myself. I am now in my small and humble way living that dream. With this limited experience let me say that you do not ’start’ an academic institution. Instead you ‘build’ it. Hope it makes sense to you.

c) On your final question about Bond system for students – Before addressing this question, let us first ask another question. what is and what should be the purpose of any academic institution? Hope you understand the drift. The drift is that when you have a purpose, which is different then you need additional measures to meet that purpose like Bond. More plainly T-DA needs a bond system because those who are running T-DA has got a purpose of creating a workforce for DHAN Foundation and organizations which are close to them.

In other words whenever the core product (In this case of TDA imparting knowledge or building human resources of specific skills and attitude) does not directly meet the specific (read vested, but they need not be bad always) interests of promoters, they bring in external conditions to meet those interests. These conditions will not be consistent with the Academic nature of the institution. Not only T-DA, but there are many examples of this type of approach in India and world over. Also the specific interest of promoters could be money, power, etc. anything.

This is the reason, Prof. Gupta used to emphasize that T-DA should find a separate identity of its know as different from DHAN Foundation. As long as this does not happen, T-DA’s interests as an academic institution will be secondary to DHAN Foundation’s interests as an organization. ‘Organization’ is a very narrow term with more short term objectives than an ‘institution’ .

This is the reason world over all important and well-known institutions are always registered and functioning as independent ‘Trusts’ ot other types non-profit making bodies with independent Governing structures / councils, even if the funding comes from different private companies or organizations. Academic independence is the core of any academic institution, which alone helps it to grow and flourish.

Therefore you cannot start or run an academic institution, in the true sense of the word. You can only build it and design systems, processes, structures and mechanisms for its independent pursuit of academic excellence. But, then it depends on your core purpose or motivation for initiating this.

thanks,

Sreejith

Tailpiece – As long as T-DA is being run for a narrow, short-term purpose defined by the interests of DHAN Foundation, an Alumni association is irrelevant and nonviable. We can only have alumni collectives if want to know and share with each other.

— On Mon, 6/8/09, subodh kumar wrote:

From: subodh kumar
Subject: Re: [pdmalum] PDM-7 friends
To: pdmalum@yahoogroups .com
Cc: “vinod pandey”
Date: Monday, June 8, 2009, 4:48 PM

Dear All…
I will follow your suggestions. Kindly forward numbers of our seniors like manoj sir, bhavani shanker etc.
Vinod from PDM 7 has following concerns on the issue
(Dear all,

Recently I have been to Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), Indian Institute of Management, Ahemdabad (IIM-A) and Indian Infantry School, MHOW (MP) to have some interaction on mushrooming of academic institutions. In due course of interaction with students few critical points were raised as:

¨ What does an academic institution mean?

¨ Can anyone run any type of academic institution?

¨ At what extent affiliation of academic institutions is important?

¨ Up to what extent bond system for students should be acceptable?- it should be/should not be?

I am confused on all these issues, although I have gone through different literatures but is unable to find the proper way…it is my kind request to you all (TDAites) keeping ourself in the center of these question try to find out the solution and also help me to come out of the confusion.

One more thing the above-mentioned questions are not the questions for so called hot discussion, but just to internalize and to come out with some positive solutions.

Students of IRMA and IIMs are clear on this…up to what extent we are clear is important?

This is important for me, because later on after 10 years I have plan to start an academic institution for development studies and with a solid team I want to make it the best in each and every aspect (special focus giving space to students).

Hope for my dream come true you all would suggest me!

Regards

Vinod Pandey