CEPT goes the IIM-A way,students to assess teachers

Written by Lakshmi Ajay

Ahmedabad | June 5, 2013 04:24 AM IST

3 min read

Taking a cue from premier management institute Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A),the Centre for Environment Planning and Technology University (CEPT) University will introduce faculty assessment by students starting from this academic session. This comes as the latest in the slew of administrative rejigs taking place in the institute spearheaded by its new director Bimal Patel.

Faculty assessment has been the backbone of premier institutes of the country like IIM-A. We have always had it in the University but in a very unorganised way. There was no streamlined process. We plan to introduce a system wherein the assessment will be conducted similar to that of IIM-A. We have 100 full time faculty and 221 visiting faculties,both of whom will be assessed at the end of the semester or their course, said Bimal Patel.

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Ajay Pandey,Dean Faculty of the IIM-A who is currently officiating as the Director explained how the system operates.

We conduct an assessment about the course and the instructor at the end. Mostly the ratings of both are highly correlated and based on multiple dimensions to which students give ratings between 0 to 10. Following this a faculty note record is maintained that is accessible to all the faculty. Every programme office at the end of the semester compiles the students feedback. An average of the feedback given by all the students is taken and is then made public, Pandey said.

At the CEPT University,the faculty will be marked on parameters like clarity,how the faculty creates interest about the subject among students,class time management,communication skills and the level of preparedness among others.

An Academic Staff Office has been constituted that will look into all matters relating to staff including assessment,Patel added.

The assessment programme will be designed under the aegis of this new office by a former research fellow at IIM-A,who teaches in the Faculty of Planning.

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Recently IIM-A has also limited the number of hours a faculty can devote to consulting work to 53 days to streamline its consulting projects and to enhance research work. CEPT University seems to be toeing the line taken by IIM-A as it will see lesser consultation projects taken up by the faculty.

Academic institutions usually take up either contracted research or consultation projects. Ideally the institute should be doing more of contracted research than consultation unless it is required to perform an advisory function.

As a university,we will take up consultation if the project is research oriented,or if there is any policy level recommendations or high-level competence required.

Around 30 of the 100 full time faculty from CEPT University will be involved in the governance of the institute through various councils and departments, added Patel.