In a typical university,the staff is broadly classified into academic&administrative.In some universities, the system is biased towards the administrative staff in 2 respects, payroll & promotion, rendering the academic staff to have less advantage. To illustrate: If 2 persons ("A" who holds PhD & "B" who holds M.A are both appointed at the same time with "A" in the academic staff while "B" in the administrative staff, then the annual rises in payment of "A" are stopped, say after 6 years, if "A" is not promoted from assistant to associated professor while "B" keeps on getting the rises unconditionally. When "A" wants to get promotion, there are many hurdles such as requirement of publication "as a single author" of research papers in journals with high impact factors without helping "A" to do top research in the first place. After, say 15 years, the monthly salary of "B" becomes higher than that of "A"!).
This injustice is significant, because in many universities, I know, there appears to be resentment between academic staff & administrative staff because the hardworking part is not rewarded while the "armchair party" is rewarded.
The academics are usually the frontline staff that provide the teaching & research functions that represent the university’s core business.
How can an effective remedial action be carried out, in the aforementioned universities, so as all the employees are equally treated?
Promotion in any job and cadre should never be time-bound. It should be based on merit and performance. Time-bound promotion reflects a Fordist system, which is giving way to performance-oriented system in the Post-Fordist era that we presently are. If that happens, there would be little scope for feeling of comparative deprivation as is envisaged in the question. But it is essential that a state-of-the-art system is evolved for managing performance. for both sets of roles i.e. academic and administrative jobs in consonance with the objectives of these two sets of jobs.
Promotion in any job and cadre should never be time-bound. It should be based on merit and performance. Time-bound promotion reflects a Fordist system, which is giving way to performance-oriented system in the Post-Fordist era that we presently are. If that happens, there would be little scope for feeling of comparative deprivation as is envisaged in the question. But it is essential that a state-of-the-art system is evolved for managing performance. for both sets of roles i.e. academic and administrative jobs in consonance with the objectives of these two sets of jobs.
Dear Professor Debi, Your contribution is much appreciated. As usual, I see brilliant ideas from you. I,really, did not send messages, for sharing in the discussion here, to my dear colleagues at RG because the subject is so sensitive in some universities. I understand that some administrative staff rule the academic staff with an iron fist, in certain places, but I hope that some of them will participate even with vague non-specific statements!
Saini, i support you that it should be on merit and be time bound. But this does not happen in Kenya. promotions in some Universities in Africa and in Kenya particularly depends who you are.
Dear Taratisio, Thank you for your valuable contribution. One of the big obstacles in front of progress in 3rd world countries, such as yours or ours, is injustice which prevails in many establishments. As you said rightly "promotion depends... on who you are" & this applies to many countries in our region. You can see easily a hard working teacher in a university who brought many advantages to it being stopped from promotion while a lazy person in the administrative staff getting continuous promotions although s/he spends most of the time chatting or eating or reading the newspaper with very little work as a cover-up. How on earth will be a progress in such situation?
I always remind people: Does the university exist because of the academic and/or administrative staff, e.g. what would be a university without academic staff versus a university without administrative staff?
Very good question from dear Marcel. In a "healthy" atmosphere, the academic staff & the administrative staff will be complementing each other but in a "polluted" atmosphere, the administrative staff will rule & ordain from the "comfort" of their armchairs. The academic staff are the "real" motor of any vibrant university but when they are treated badly by an administration, then there must be a hidden hostile agenda behind that.
An alternate way out can have the following road map.As the academic staff is technically qualified & as it has a high caliber,let them take up consultancy services so as to develop resources & the entrepreneurs. Those of the entrepreneurs who would like to have expert services of Professors/Scientists would not mind about the remuneration asked of them.Another advantage for the academic staff is that they will keep themselves abreast of the latest knowledge in their respective fields & may find an avenue for employment after retirement in the private sector.This is a win-win situation for all concerned.
Dear Professor Chandravadan Trivedi, Thank you for your valuable contribution & sorry that I responded late (because the past 12 days were total engagement with final exams at our university). Your suggestion is really very good. However, in some universities the academic is considered by the top management as a slave who must be under the orders from 8:00 a.m Sunday morning to 5:00 p.m Thursday afternoon. When a neighboring university asked the approval of a certain university to allow an academic to teach a single 3 credit hours course in the afternoons of Monday & Wednesday, the administration replied "No objection on Saturdays" i.e. a refusal in reality. How come such universities will allow an academic to have consultancy work?
There are few aspects to consider:
1. No doubt, teaching faculty is important as university is known by the contribution of teachers.
2. Promotion of teachers and administrative staff must be based on merit and performance.
3. In our university, administrative staff are promoted very fast, even by relaxing the the minimum eligibility conditions, where as teachers have to complete the required number of years with required API for promotion. I don't remember any case of teacher whose were relaxed for promotion.
4. Teacher has to cover a defined workload in terms of teaching and research, where as such conditions are not so tight as in case of teachers.
5. Importance must be given to contributions.
Dear Professor Subhash Kundu , I think that there is relatively more justice in Indian universities. In other countries, there is flagrant injustice & the perpetrators are proud of it. The administrative staff can have promotions & annual increases in their salaries for 35 years on the basis of a piece of paper "report" from his/her direct boss. The academic must publish one or two research papers in high impact factor journals in order to "buy" 5 years of annual increases in salary. Quality teaching for years is insignificant under such regimes. Assume someone was subdued & went for research, then enormous hurdles will be placed if the scholar is counted as "disobedient" by the "big brother". It is a vicious circle. Some cut it short & pay money for gangs that include their names in published papers. A strange thing I observed in a certain 3rd world university: generally speaking, many assistant professors are stronger scientifically than associated professors, who in turn are stronger than full professors !
Academic and Administrative Staff are not equal. Even can't be equal as these different streams.
Commenting on the last 2 contributions of dear professors George & Subhash (sorry that I only saw them now). In some 3rd world universities, you may see an employees' union appointed by the administration in a tricky way. Such administration will ensure that all things go its way. If the union moves to do something, then it is the administration which has "really" designed the move.
Some time ago, a strike of several days was made in some 3rd world universities by a call from the unions to protest about no response to specific "just" demands. The unions stopped the strike after 3 days for a "silly" reason: "Due to the prevailing state in the country !!" without achieving anything.The administration in one university decided to finish the semester as scheduled before the strike. The students lost 3 days which they paid for.
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