The erosion of the quality of education — this has been the fall out of the years of neglect that research and development activity has suffered in India.

Due to the strong linkage between R&D and the quality of education, particularly in technical areas where the body of knowledge is rapidly evolving, lack of R&D activity in an educational institute implies degradation in the quality of its education.

As a majority of the country’s universities and colleges are, or have become, teaching-only places, the reputation of once-top institutes has waned in both R&D and educational circles. Only those places that have maintained some R&D activity are still able to provide high quality education, like the IITs, IISc, Delhi School of Economics, BITS, NITs, etc.

Hence, if we are to upgrade the quality of education in these universities, colleges and institutes, an impetus must be given to enhance R&D. Of course, in this increasingly knowledge-based world where development of new technologies and intellectual property is important for economic growth, R&D growth is needed for other reasons too: only countries that do well in these areas will move ahead.

Given the history of most of these institutes, reorienting them to become R&D centres will require changes in the way they are governed such that individuals are motivated to do more R&D.

In particular, a change in how faculty resources are managed is called for, as they are the form the key assets for this manner of activity.

A basic paradigm of human resource management is that the performance of an individual must be appraised with respect to some objectives so as to identify strengths and areas of improvement. As no performance appraisal is meaningful unless it is backed with suitable incentives and disincentives, action based on the outcome of the appraisal is essential.

Currently, in universities and institutes there is no regular appraisal of faculty based on which incentives for pursuing good R&D (and disincentives for not contributing) are given.

This lack of any system of recognition is the most significant systemic issue that must be resolved if our universities and institutes must make an impact on the R&D front, and in the process improve the quality of education as well.

Given the past history and culture of these places, an incentive system where salaries can be freely decided is neither possible, nor desirable, as compensation should never be the only reward mechanism in these institutes of learning.

It will be best if the reward or incentive system can be built into the salary-scale-increment concept, with which the government and faculty are comfortable.

One simple way to achieve this is to have a system of variable increments, where the academic performance of each faculty member is appraised at the end of the year.

The criteria for appraisal should attach suitable weight to R&D performance, and should be clearly articulated. Based on the outcome of the appraisal, performance can be grouped in a few categories, and people in different categories can be given varied increments.

To keep the whole exercise manageable, perhaps three to four categories can be created. Two approaches are possible here:

As per the first approach it could be stated that while each individual is entitled to a dearness allowance, the increment is not a right and must be earned. With this philosophical shift, based on performance, the top 10% can be given substantially more increments (say 4), and the next 25% should also be given additional increments (say 2). The average performer should be given the regular 1 increment, and the bottom 10% may not be given any increment.

The second approach avoids the issue of whether an increment is earned or a right, and give 1 increment to the lowest 10%, 2 increments to the average, 3 increments to the top 25%, and 4 increments to the top 10%. These percentages should be fixed suitably such that it creates the desired differentiation.

This scheme creates some differential in the reward structure while maintaining an overall balance, which is important in an academic institution where great disparity in financial rewards is perhaps not desirable.

However, the key aspect of this scheme is that it requires a performance appraisal every year of all faculty, and separates the performers from the average and under performers.

The fact that the next year’s salary will be determined based on the outcome of the appraisal will ensure that appraisals are done in time and taken seriously.

A system will have to be evolved to conduct the appraisals, as in a relatively flat university structure, the methods of hierarchic organisations cannot be applied. This will need detailed discussion within each university.

One possible method is to have wide-based feedback at the department level on an individual’s performance — eg by colleagues, or a large sub-group.

Based on the departmental evaluation, a university-wide committee can then do the final evaluation. Clearly, as the focus of the initiative is to promote R&D, the appraisal criteria used should be focused around R&D.

If this simple mechanism can be implemented, we may witness a sea change in how R&D is viewed by faculty and administrators. This will slowly lead to other systems being developed to support and promote such activity.

Without a mechanism of this type, the desire and incentives for individuals to engage and excel in R&D are unlikely. It should be added that such a system would eventually also be rewarding as its basic purpose is to provide timely and regular feedback so individuals can improve their performance.

The world is moving towards performance-based reward systems as most professional set-ups will not remain professional or competitive without it.

There is no reason why such mechanisms should not be used in educational systems. In fact, educational institutes should take the lead — after all education is about showing others the way.

The Author is a professor of computer science at IIT Kanpur