Online Admissions - Surprisingly Smooth

We have repeatedly criticised our education system to be outdated, bureaucratic, and unresposive. It has been effective in churning out graduates by the million who are poor in so many vital skills that they are unemployable anyway. Further, various debates rage about the size of the school bags and overemphasis on learning by rote.

This academic year had two things of note in Maharashtra - Online admissions to the first year of junior college (after a miserable failure last year) and an ugly spat between SSCE board on one side and the ICSE and CBSE boards on the other hand. The latter left a bitter taste and delayed college opening by two months and we shall not talk about this.

The other is online admissons pushed through by Govt. of Maharashtra with laudable objectives. I believe that this has been successful, even though we have not yet completed the whole admission process. Infact, I may not be far away from the mark, if I were to call it an unqualified success. Let us not grudge credit where it is due.

A lot of thought and planning has gone in setting this system up. Compared to the disaster we had last year, it is smooth sailing this time. This time around, the Board authorities began early.  A detailed booklet was prepared and given to every student  sometime in mid-April. Each student was given a unique ID for use when the online process would begin.

There were dry runs with all schools participating. Students with their parents had to undergo a couple of sessions of familiarisation. I was surprised at how thorough the authorities were with their preparations. They were not ready for failure a second time around.

The result was a smooth glitch free process that will come to an end by end August. A rare instance of some excellent work done by the state government authorities. They need to be applauded for this. Just shows that with the right intent, even, an often ridiculed, government dept. can conceptualise something that genuinely adds value to us common citizens. This has almost eliminated the tensions and pressures of running around to various colleges. A great example of effective application of IT skills.

Three Cheers for that.

Lessons we can draw from 26/11

November 26^th happened and we witnessed three days of vicious battle. It also united the country like no other incident in recent memory has. Public anger bubbled over and there was savage criticism of the government in general and the political class in specific. The government of the day was forced to make changes and hopefully something concrete emerges out of it.

I was analyzing the entire episode from a very dispassionate angle and read with great interest all material available on all the planning that went behind this operation. At the end of it, what emerged was an absolute professional approach to the task at hand.

Let me issue a disclaimer here. This is not a post to glorify the terrorist nor does it seek to justify their objective or their actions. This is a dispassionate attempt to understand the approach and the lessons it holds for us.

When I look at what happened and the background information that emerged subsequently, a sequence of activities becomes clear. I will not repeat the activities but look at it from a management perspective.

1. Complete clarity of objective,
2. Multiple teams in place,
3. Thorough information gathering,
4. Detailed planning right down to the brass-tacks,
5. Rigorous and professional training,
6. High levels of motivation and passion,
7. Complete unanimity in the execution team,
8. Complete clarity of each team member’s role,
9. Constant communication with central point,
10. Real time alignment depending on ground situation,
11. Ruthless and professional execution.

When you mull on these points, it becomes clear that any top notch world class management would have had the same approach.

I just wondered if we in India had imbibed these principles in our nation building efforts, we would have been an economic and military superpower by now. It is important that our recent efforts at revamping our security apparatus are carried through carefully and with a degree of thoroughness that has not been visible till now, more so as the opponent has a highly focused, organized and ruthless approach.

It also highlights that anything done as a job with little or no interest results in poor output and in times of emergency a complete rout. We need to inject passion and enthusiasm in many of our efforts and the tenacity to stick through. May this shock jolt us from our deep slumber and prod us on to meaningful action.