Shape up or ship out: VIT VP

VELLORE: “Except death and taxes, all other things remain static,” remarked Sekar Viswanathan, VIT vice president while inaugurating a five-day ‘Change Management Course’ for prison officials, organised by the Academy of Prisons and Correctional Administration (APCA) on Monday.“If you do not respond to changes, you get eliminated as in the case of dinosaurs”, he pointed out while driving home the point that prison officials need to respond to the changes in the emerging concepts of reformation and correctional administration with the focus on changing the attitude of the prisoners so that they came out as good human beings.He underlined the need for the prison officials to acquire skills to change, leadership qualities and dynamism. Prison management is primarily a human resource management problem and it has to be best  approached with an open mind, he added. In the USA, the entire security system in the prisons is automated. “We need to think of such innovations here too,” he pointed out. Activities such as food and education in the prison also need to be automated to achieve better efficiency, he added.APCA director M R Ahmed in his welcome address pointed out that the course was designed for prison administrators, probation and correctional officers from the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and for the first time, officers from Puducherry and Gujarat have also participated. 26 officers are participating in the course which aims to make them understand the need for change in the prison administration while enabling them to workout the outcome of change.For the first time, APCA has tied up with the VIT university to conduct the course as a structured approach and an organisational process to help prison officers accept and embrace changes in their environment. “Change management begins with a systematic diagnosis of the situation in order to determine both the need for change and capability to change,” he said, adding that it required a deep social understanding of leadership and group dynamics. Faculty members from VIT and APCA will be conducting the course.