Grievance Cell

Overview

It is good to air a grievance rather than to keep it bottled up. To realize the primary needs of the students and teachers and secure civil liberties for the institute stakeholders, a Grievance Redressal System needs to be constituted. A “Grievance/Complaint” can be defined as any communication that conveys dissatisfaction about an action or lack of action, about services/deficiency of services in an institute and the complainant asks for remedial action. With the increase of grievances in educational institutions, technical educational council in India has made it mandatory to establish grievance redressal portal in every affiliated institution. Grievance Redress Mechanism is part and parcel of the machinery of any administration. No administration can claim to be accountable, responsive and user-friendly unless it has established an efficient and effective system for grievance redressal. In fact, the grievance redressal mechanism of an organization is the gauge to measure its efficiency and effectiveness as it provides important feedback on the working of the administration. With respect to educational institutions, an online portal for registering and disposing of grievance can do a lot to solve issues and grievances pertaining to admission, attendance, discipline matters, student conduct, fee related matter, evaluation process, observation of norms and standards, violation of rules, discrimination, harassment and other academic and non-academic issues. The primary objective of the grievance tracking system is to develop a responsive and accountable attitude among all the institute constituents in order to maintain a harmonious educational atmosphere in the institute. Online grievance administration system can develop an organisational framework to resolve grievances of students and other stakeholders providing immediate access and hassle free recourse. Grievance redressal technology establishes structured interaction with the complainants to elicit information, identifies systemic flaws in the administration and institutes a monitoring mechanism to oversee the working of the institutional policies. By establishing an online mechanism for registering and disposing of grievances, institutions can uphold its dignity by promoting cordial student-educator relationship and the system can be effectively used to sort out the grievances promptly and judiciously.

How to Implement

As per the AICTE circular, institutions should have a notice board near the office of its Head, indicating the details of online Grievance Redressal Mechanism i.e. URL of the online Grievance Redressal portal, contact details and e-mail IDs of the Grievance committee members to ensure awareness of the establishment of Grievance Redress Mechanism/Students Grievances Portal. Grievance redressal software with a unique URL can be provided for the users to access the online grievance portal readily. The client institution can also use an URL as grievance.yourcollegewebsite.com by creating a sub domain on your server and redirect it to unique URL. For speedy registration of grievances, you can also put a link “Grievance” on your existing website and link it to your portal with the help of your web developer. Interested in installing a grievance redress mechanism for online registration as well as disposal of the grievances?

Features

The Grievance Redressal System is a technology enabled grievance redress platform inbuilt with a mechanism where suggestions for improvement of teaching-learning and other related matters of the institution directly or indirectly evolve. Through online grievance redressal, institutions can employ a set of specific measures to ensure accountability and maximum output, increasing transparency in the grievance handling procedure thereby establishing a very positive ambience. Grievances can be lodged for a variety of reasons like admission process in totality including reservation policy, discrimination of students on the basis of caste, age, sex and race, examination process, non-declaration of results, lack of amenities, non-payment of scholarships, victimization of students and sexual harassment cases etc.

Complainants’ Interface

• Lodge grievances by students, teachers, parents and other staff.
• View status of the complaints posted.
• View the reply for the complaint posted.
• Reopen the grievance case for further investigation.
• Detailed account of the grievance in not less than 4000 words.
• View notifications from the grievance cell members.
• Send alert on pending grievances.
• Edit and reset profile.
• Attach supporting files in favour of the grievance.

Admin Interface

• Add grievance cell members.
• Create and monitor accounts of grievance cell members.
• Verify and approve registered users(complainants).
• Add details of the institution and a management representative.
• View complaints sent by the users.
• Check the authenticity of the complaint.
• Assign complaints to grievance cell members based on the complaint type.
• Generate reports on a monthly basis in word/pdf/excel format.
• Account Settings to edit and reset admin profile.

Grievance Cell Member Interface

1. Option to view complaints sent by the user.
2. Send reply to the complaints along with attachments, if any.
3. View reminders on pending complaints.
4. Generate report on the total/pending/closed complaints, assigning start and end date.
5. Give satisfactory solution to re-opened complaints.
6. Edit and reset profile.

Reports

1. Customisable and fully integrated report.
2. Reports can be generated by assigning start and end date.
3. Admin can create reports in three categories such as total grievances received, pending grievances, and closed grievances.
4. Reports can be viewed/downloaded in word, pdf and excel format.

Advantages

The mechanism for online registration and disposal of grievances enables a complainant to express feelings by initiating and pursuing the grievance procedure in accordance with the rules and regulations of the institution. The main advantage of the portal is to prevent unfair practices in higher education institutions and provide effective mechanism for redressal of the grievances. It also helps the grievance cell member to enquire and analyse grievance in a strictly confidential yet transparent manner.

1. Provides security for affected person to participate without fear of intimidation or retribution.
2. It provides a fair and speedy means of grievance handling.
3. Shows clarity in procedures, processes, and time frames adopted.
4. The affected person need not consult grievance cell members directly to register complaints.
5. Saves time of affected person and cell members.
6. Automates entire grievance procedure right from its registration to closure.
7. Greater confidentiality and transparency in complaints dealing procedure.
8. Advantage over paper-based systems.
9. Alerts users immediately on the grievance, action taken etc.
10. Round the clock availability.
11. Builds harmonious education atmosphere in campus.
12. Is in compliance with existing systems without undermining them.
13. Streamlined and systematic grievance reporting.
14. Serves as an outlet for petitioner’s frustrations and discontents.