Do you agree that a university is an institution that provides knowledge - knowledge that is accessible, dynamic and responsive to the community? If yes, then what should be the priority of any higher education institutions? While I am witnessing a growth in scholarly activities in the last two decades, yet, what baffles me is the unresolved puzzle of existing skill gap! The faculty members are highly interested in research and publications because that is more rewarding to them in terms of the professional career. Should not we conclude that we are ignoring the most important stakeholder of any institution-our students?
We are forgetting that the Universities exist for a very special reason. They exist to enable talented and committed individuals to seek the truth. It seems to me that we are forgetting that the aim of any university is to provide quality higher education, embrace the values with regard to the subjects and create practical scenarios that coincide with real life scenarios for the development of these disciplines.
A university performs this act as an obligation towards the society. This is because a university plays a vital role in restructuring the lives of students. This student body with the acquired knowledge works towards the prosperity of themselves, their families and the economy. If a university does not serve its student body towards prosperity, then students will not be able to cope up with the rapid changes in the society as they are not prepared for such a change and they do not have the capacity to face the educational upgrade of the meritocratic society they live in.
I agree that the universities require academic research but not to determine the level of competency of the academic institution. The measure of competency should be based on the quality of education they provide to their students and the level of knowledge possessed by a graduate from that university.
Producing graduates equipped for their future is a key part of higher education and I seriously doubt that happening, if universities only focus on conducting and publishing research papers rather than effective teaching for student success and giving ample job opportunities to the ghostwriters!
A student's personality development, worldly performance, and social adjustment are based on the foundations created and built by teaching institutions. The fact is that the teaching quality of universities has significantly deteriorated and has negatively affected students' coping strategies. A significant reason behind the deterioration of teaching quality is the lack of motivation to teach. This is because faculty members are more focused on research for their personal gains with the only motive of promotion and because of the pressure from the University authorities to retain or improve their ranking and hence they have become less caring, less supportive and less informative about teaching strategies and classroom discussions. While the students want teaching quality when it comes to what means to them as "educational success".
It is frightening to see that universities today are forgetting their sole purpose of preparing young people for the workforce and arguably, we all know that the higher the skill level of our workforce, the higher is our country's productivity. Focusing on research for personal gains and ignoring effective teaching strategies and the success rate of their graduates, which is a core determinant of success for any university, is certainly questionable.
