Making V-school headmasters out of B-school graduates

Sibals leadership principle

It may be left to management experts to figure out whether Sibal’s theory rests on sound principles, but the HRD minister believes that making principals out of some willing pass-outs from the Indian Institutes of Management is a workable proposition.
Interacting with a group of women entrepreneurs here on Wednesday, Sibal focused on the need of leaders in education, including capable principals in large numbers, especially in the model schools to be set up across the country.

“I have interacted with students in the prestigious B-schools and many of them want to opt for teaching. Why can’t we have graduates from the Indian Institutes of Management as principals in these schools?” he asked.

“A number of IIM and IIT students come from rural background and they want to give back something to their villages. We should explore this opportunity,” he said.
The HRD Ministry had asked the universities to design a course on leadership skills, which would include leadership in education sector.

Having it easy
“On a normal course, it takes about nine years for a teacher to become principal in a school. But if an IIM or IIT graduate undertakes the Leadership Development programme in a university, he can be recruited as a principal within two years,” the minister said.
However, after serving a certain period he would be free to go back to the industry if he wants to.

The minister admitted that the issue of compensation of the school teachers would have to be considered with utmost importance.
Sibal also asserted that Government would never allow profiteering in education that would go as dividends to the share holders.

Even though the educational institutions were allowed to make profit, it should be ploughed back to the institutions for their development.
Citing the example of Harvard and Yale Universities, which were set up as trusts, the minister said no country could allow profiteering in education.
Maintaining that implementation of the Right to Education Act would be a challenge Sibal said without active participation and monitoring by the states it would be difficult to maintain quality in school education.

The Centre could lay down rules, provide guidelines for core curriculum and qualification of teachers, but the actual implementation including building of infrastructure and recruitment of teachers should be done by the states.

He also pointed out that the states would have to keep a watch on whether the private schools were setting aside 25 per cent seats for poor children in the locality.
Stating that all institutes of higher education should have to get certificates from the proposed National Accreditation Authority the minister said even the existing institutions would have to streamline their system to get accreditation.
He also maintained that the government had no plans of scrapping the class XII Board examinations.
DH News Service