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Published: January 24th 2013
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Thursday 24 January 2013
Vidya let me into her kitchen today to show me how she makes some of the South Indian cuisine I have been enjoying here, including idly, roti and coconut chutney. I hope I can find the ingredients at home so that I can share them. I also got a chance to play with Yashas and the young neighbour from upstairs. It is quite common here for neighbours and family to walk in and out of each other’s homes. The door always seems to be open, especially in these smaller communities. I was really interested to see that Yashas toy kitchen has all of the traditional Indian utensils. I’m sure the kids at home would be a bit confused by this!
Today is my fifth and final vocational day and I’m visiting KUVEMPU University, along with Angie and four Rotarians. I was delighted when I walked in and spotted a sign for the Public Relations office. I have already visited Manipal University and Mysore University and both said that they didn’t have a PR or communications department so they showed me their journalism faculty instead. KUVEMPU is ranked 92
nd out of 4000 universities. However, when I
asked about measurement, it seems that the results are all based on what the university says about itself and there is no form of student satisfaction or performance measurement.
First stop is the Vice Chancellors office where we meet Dr. Bari. The chancellor of the university here is the state governor. The university is 25 years old and it caters for a rural and tribal population. To support this, there are 81 affiliated colleges across the state and the university has 55,000 students in total. There are five faculties; Social Sciences, Humanities, Science and Technology, Law and Education. There are 4,000 postgraduate students and 70% of all students are female. This university is more like the university where I work, the University of Cumbria, than any of the others I have visited here. Dr. Bari tells us that the university is highly subsidised by the government and a social sciences student for example would only pay around 3000 rupees per year (about £30 if my calculations are right!).
The students here are well motivated as the country has had a big focus on education for the last ten or 15 years. The economy has opened up and people
are attracted by the employment opportunities available within private companies. Course options fluctuate though as most parents want their children to be engineers or doctors. It means that basic sciences and social sciences are falling out of fashion. The dropout rate is low, just 1%, but of those who do leave, the boys go to seek paid employment opportunities and the girls often have to leave to get married if their parents are offered a good match before they finish their education.
When I ask them what their biggest challenges are, I’m told that the university always struggles with money, despite being funded by the government. They also say that students have much higher expectations when it comes to facilities and lots of welfare measures have recently been introduced for students and staff. They also bring up the topical international visa issue which has been rumbling in UK universities. They want to know what we do about it and if we need more international students in our universities. The staff here, and most of the people we talk to day to day, can’t believe that all of our schools are government funded. Here, only the poor children go to
government schools. We also have a very interesting discussion about how Indian people look down upon people in certain professions. Yet, in the UK, we respect skilled people who work hard.
Despite asking again to visit the PR office, we are taken to the management institute where we meet around 100 students. It’s strange to see them in a uniform as I can’t imagine UK students sticking to a uniform rule. We are getting used to giving impromptu presentations and after telling them about my job, the staff and students ask me some questions which cover the things to consider in public relations, the importance of business ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the qualities of a good manager when it comes to communication and CSR. The management institute encourages entrepreneurship and they work with the local Chamber of Commerce and private businesses to offer placements and experience. The government has its own programme for business start up and sustainability but it doesn’t associate with any university when delivering this.
I ask again to visit the PR office and I am taken to meet a man who has responsibility for PR, however he is a full time
academic and there are actually three staff in another office that do the day to day PR activity. The frustrating thing with the vocational days is that we are not always getting to talk to the right people, the ones who could tell me about how the PR office works here and discussions around the differences in the UK. He does tell me that the three staff also do all of the marketing activity and one writes, one types up the writing and the other distributes the information to the media or other stakeholders. They do not have any sort of expert datatbase, they don’t use social media, they have a press meeting with the VC once a month and they publish an internal magazine but it seems to be more about research papers than anything else.
While this may be working for them now, newspapers and media are growing across India and I can imagine that in around 20 years time, the university will have to invest more resources in public relations and communications.
Tracy x
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