Organizational design and management control systems at Ekal Vidyalaya foundation India

Abstract

Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation India (EVFI) is an NGO working in rural and tribal areas which manages non-formal one-teacher schools. The organization is dedicated to education and village development in rural India operating in over 36,000 villages and educating over 9,00,000 children. Ekal s mission is to literate rural and tribal India by 2015. To achieve this goal, the organization is aiming to take the total number of one-teacher schools to 100,000. The aim of our study is to recommend changes in Organizational structure and Management Control Systems to Ekal Vidyalaya in its mission to reach size of 100,000 schools in next 3 to 4 years time. This report focuses on studying the alignment of Strategy, Structure and Systems of EVFI and come up with suggestions to improve any aspects related to them so that EVFI can achieve its goal by correcting the organization structure and establishing the right management control systems. Dr. DVR Seshadri, along with TATA-Dhan foundation of Tamil Nadu, undertook a study to understand the social impact of the Ekal Vidyalaya activities in few states of India. The findings are available in the form of state reports. These reports compare activities of the one-teacher schools in various states and gives good insights into the operations of the schools and overall organization. Study of scholarly articles and research papers was done primarily on the topics related to: 1. Organizational design and architecture 2. Transition of an organization from relation based control systems to rule based control systems, particularly in the world of NGOs. Next, using these two studies, hypothesis and proposal were generated which mentions the kind of organizational architecture and management control mechanisms present at EVFI. Also, a questionnaire was developed to test the hypothesis with the functionaries of EVFI. Interviews were conducted with the middle level management of the organization to confirm the structure and operations of the organization. In case, there was any new understanding, hypothesis was modified accordingly. Next, questions were asked to test the hypothesis and locate the gaps between the MCS present at EVFI and what the academic research suggests. This gap forms the basis of our recommendation to EVFI regarding the systems that should be put for the effective control of the organization. With regards to the organizational structure, the report proposes functional architecture, for deeper specialization and improved organizational efficiency. New functions related to growth, training and vigilance have been proposed with the focus on State level units. Also, detailed process have been proposed for fund raising management at different levels of the hierarchy. With regards to the management control systems, it is proposed that members of the organization, at the bottom of hierarchy, should be moved towards market control mechanism supported by action based monitoring systems. Also, limiting the investments in gram samiti, as a beneficiary control mechanism, has been recommended.