Academic Roles of Educational Leaders for Quality Learning Environment in the Public and Private Universities at Lahore

Introduction

The support of the leadership for learning environment changes the teachers and systems. This transformation is a key role of the efforts for quality improvement. The leaders identify, cultivate and nurture the faculty to proceed for leadership in education. Researchers identified that leaders are having the capacity to develop a positive change by growing, engaging, helping and empowering the individuals. They address the challenges, engage different kind of individuals, develop linkages with other universities and create positive working relationship between administration and faculty. The availability of literature about academic roles of leadership for quality of learning environment is limited at the level of universities and higher educational institutions. Quality is a multidimensional concept. It is different in different context. It is attached to the contextual factors including learning, teaching, intake of students and assessment methods. Researchers showed that perception of students about quality includes performance of teachers, learning and teaching. Perception of teachers about quality includes burden, discipline, technology, lack of mutual trust and constraints of teamwork. It is evident that the source of inspiration, support, direction and guidance are the important academic roles of leaders. Some other roles of leaders include risk assessment, innovation support, enhance the repute of the institute, competition and confidence provision in the governance of the institute. Now a days the learning environments of universities are very dynamic.

It is mandatory to look for the excellence in the learning environment of the higher education. A research described that the expansion of information processing, project and task work environments, cognitive complexity, problem solving, knowledge application and generation of new knowledge are the landscape and nature of working in universities. It also includes greater autonomy, intensive interactions, extensive communication, risk taking, shared decision making, trust and adaptability, teamwork, independence and collaboration. Leaders are considered as the designers and producers of the structures and processes for whole of the learning environment. Different researchers concluded that the roles for academic development are related with academic leadership and these roles must be articulated. This study was designed to identify academic roles being played and entrusted to the educational leadership in their setups and find the elements of the leadership roles which are being reflected in the different capacities by different leaders including senior and junior faculty.

Methodology

This comparative cross-sectional study was conducted at Lahore, among the public and private sector universities recognised by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. Out of the total five public and 11 private universities, only general education related universities were included in the study. Stratified sampling technique was opted and universities having the faculties of natural sciences, arts & humanities, management sciences and social sciences were selected for study population. Based on the documents of Higher Education Commission only three universities counting one public and two private universities met the inclusion criteria. The educational leadership of the universities was categorised into senior faculty (188 subjects) consisting of Deans/Directors/ HODs/ Professors and Associate Professors whereas second category comprised of Assistant Professors and Lectures (513 subjects). All the 701 study subjects were personally contacted by the investigator, informed consent was obtained and they were invited to participate in the study. The data was collected through the specially designed five-point rating scale based on extensive literature review along with the face and content validation by the subject experts. These roles are for mandate, institutional vision, mission and objectives, assessment and evaluation system, research and staff or faculty. This rating scale was also pilot tested on 100 faculty members other than the study population for reliability establishment. The computed Cronbach alpha was r = .873 representing it as a reliable tool for data collection. The instrument was administered to all the study subjects. The investigator followed the data collection through e mails, telephone and at least three personal visits and received back completed responses from 349 study subjects. The data was organised, entered into the statistical package for social sciences and analysed by the use of statistical tools. Chi square test was used to determine the association of leadership roles with public or private universities using p value --- 0.05 as significant.

Discussion

The objectives of this study were to overview the academic roles from the perspective of higher educational leaders which coincide with quality of learning environment. The researcher tried to provide a comprehensive look of these roles. Former researches highlight some or few aspects of these roles. Most of these roles are abundant in the literature. The first objective of the study was to identify current academic roles being played and entrusted to the educational leadership in their setup. This study identifies the dimension of higher educational leadership roles for educational services. At first, we discuss about the roles related to mandate, institutional vision, institutional mission, institutional goals, institutional objectives, assessment and evaluation, assessment records, research planning and promotion, record of conduct and use of research and staff/faculty meetings. It is evident from the results of study that roles of public university leaders are better than private university leaders.

Public university leaders are playing their roles for mandate that is endorsed by academic council. It is revisited after specified time, vision is future oriented and developed by the decision makers. Mission is developed by board of governors which leads decision making of the university. It is revisited to be more practical goals are broader and guiding force. Objectives are specific for each program, followed for teaching and consistent with mission. Further leaders are active in their roles for evaluation system’s procedure and tools, policy and improvement plan for evaluation. They are also taking part for research planning and promotion, conduct and use of research, regular faculty meetings and implementing the decisions of these meetings. Higher education must continue to balance the above mentioned roles of leaders that are appropriate for stakeholders and retain the past learned experiences.

These roles are very important to manage the emotional and practical difficulties of the students and staff. Another study describe vision, trust, positive self-regard and communication as the major leadership roles for the quality of universities. Similarly, the important leadership roles described by other study are shared vision, challenges to the process, empowering the team members to become and act as role model for others. Researches also prove that all these roles are interrelated and tied with each other. The higher educational leaders have to establish a vision because vision is a blueprint to move towards something. Leaders must develop a shared vision. Vision is closely related to mission of organisation. Universities also find it difficult to develop a shared vision and mission. Other researchers also show that the leadership for the environment of learning encircles the establishment of vision for teaching and learning, communication of the direction and vision to all the stakeholders in a way which encourages and motivates them to use their resources in an alignment with the vision of the organisation.

It also includes the motivation and inspiration of the stakeholders to involve and engage with the vision Similarly, the roles are also enlisted as enable others to act, provide feedback, help to achieve goals and lead by example. Similarly, leaders foster professional development, sharing responsibility, combining ideas, collaborating and forming partnerships. Learning from others, sustaining interaction, encourage efforts, consulting, respecting autonomy and building shared goals are some other attributes. Other roles are finding common purpose, helping people solve problems, nurturing mutual trust, believing in others and giving them opportunities to perform as well as support them. Another study elaborate the academic leadership roles for the achievement of quality. The roles embrace motivation, delegation, empowerment and communication. Currently much of the focus of leadership development is generic, failing to attend to the particular domains of learning. A change in the culture is required promoting the recent values about the roles of leadership regarding the process of education and the quality of universities. Similarly, these leaders use relevant tools for assessment, develop a disciplined learning environment and promote a culture of dialogue and discussion about the learning activities.

The second objective was to find the elements of the leadership roles which are being reflected in the different capacities by different leaders. This study reveals the elements of the educational leadership roles for educational services of different tiers such as deans, directors, HODs/ chairmen, professors, associate professors, assistant professors and lecturers. Different researches highlight the role of presidents or vice chancellors, deans, HODs and professors separately. Such as one study was conducted at national level which highlighted the faculty roles for mission to enhance quality. An effective and efficient leadership at different levels of higher education institutes is central to quality assurance and improved innovation. They create vision and circumstances to realise and achieve that vision. It is important to mention that an extra ordinary quality of these leaders is related with their communication skills. The academic leaders organise them self in a way to communicate what must be communicated. These leaders must have the capability not only to tell the truth but to listen to the truth from others as well. A study found that the effective leaders are motivators, celebrate the good results and reward people on good performance. They are the builders of relationship, called developers as they develop policies and innovators as well as they think, go beyond, encourage and plan to involve the stakeholders in the process of decision making. It is also a matter of concern that many staff members are reluctant to assume the academic leadership roles. Further some of the studies found the roles at institutional level and some researched the roles at departmental level.

Conclusion

The study concludes that higher educational leaders at different levels i.e. from Dean to lecturers must identify and communicate their roles especially for quality of learning environment in universities. Each faculty member must practice their roles so that universities can improve their quality. Study also concludes that leadership of public universities is more aware of their roles and their performance for quality is better than private universities at Lahore.