Decentralization and participative management

Decentralization and participative management are embedded in the statutory structure of different statutory bodies of the University.

1. Participative Management: Participation of different stakeholders including teachers, officers of the University, RCs and LSCs through Director RSD, and Govt. agencies through nominees of State Govt. is ensured in different bodies of the University. In planning board of the University, even the leading industrialists and industry professionals are the members. Their presence connects the University with the Industries and business of the State. In the Expert Committee, BOS, Research Advisory Council, and Academic Council, senior academics from the other institutions of the country act as members and their guidance provides the participation of different institutions in the growth of UOU. Teachers of the University, acts as members of these bodies including AC and EC as members on rotation basis. The participation of other stakeholders like, the learners the RCs and the LSCs is ensured in an indirect manner by the presence of the Director RSD. He represents the views of these important stakeholders. The other important stakeholder is the government and the govt. is represented in the Finance Committee and in the EC of the University. Since, the representative nominated by the state govt. and the members nominated by the Chancellor takes part in these meeting of the University. Last but never the least, people of the state are also a very important group of stakeholders. In order to disseminate the information about the University to the public, the University publishes its News-letter and Annual Report. Further, the community radio of the University caters to the various requirements of the community related with the University. The public may interact with the University on its Facebook page as-well-as through e-mail and the University keeps getting suggestions about different aspects from time-to-time, say, regarding the deficiencies in the SILM were communicated by the learners and the other academics of the state and these were taken care-of during the revision of SILM.

Thus, participative management is a component of the culture of the University even on the voluntary basis in addition to the statutory provisions aimed at ensuring participative management of the University.

2. Decentralization: In order to ensure the inputs of various functionaries of the University there is a system of delegation of authority. Since, it is believed that delegation allows fresh inputs, to be enthused into the organizations and if the leadership delegates it power amongst various administrative (governing) functionaries, it leads to effective leadership in the end. As per the standard practices of the University system the V.C. has delegated his powers amongst Directors, COE, RSD, Director MPDD, Director Academic and Director CIQA. At the level of the governance of RCs and LSCs, director RSD is the chief-functionary who is assisted by the RDs and these RDs are in-turn assisted by the ARDs, thereby ensuring proper decentralization of the management of LSCs. Thus, decentralization is of two types i.e., related to University systems and related to the individual VCs. In UOU both the types of decentralizations take place, say, e.g., many Assistant Professor have been given the independent responsibilities of various important functional areas of the University like MPDD, Admissions, Model Study Center, to name a few.

Accordingly, decentralization in UOU is ensured through delegation of powers and it reflects positively in the overall management and governance of the University.

URL

http://www.uou.ac.in/book/act-statutes

http://www.uou.ac.in/sites/default/files/book/2017/07/ACT%20%2526%20STATUTE.pdf