Digital Transformation Cuts Administrative Bloat in Higher Ed

India's higher education sector is the second largest in the world, with over 43 million students enrolled across more than 58,000 institutions. Managing that sort of scale places an enormous administrative burden on universities, and much of it is still handled manually.

It’s not surprising then that paperwork, reports, compliance, and non-teaching duties are major contributors to burnout. Around 40% of faculty also want these responsibilities to be reduced, a recent survey of colleges and universities across Karnataka found. Digital transformation offers a practical solution to administrative bloat and burnout. From AI-powered request routing to self-service systems and robotic process automation, universities can adopt technologies that streamline everyday processes, reduce unnecessary admin and free up staff to focus on supporting students.

AI for faster request routing

AI helpdesk or ticketing software routes staff and student messages to the right department without delay. In fact, this technology has been found to increase staff efficiency by 33% and reduce average wait times to just over 30 seconds, IBM reveals. This is important as university admin bloat often comes from emails or phone calls to the wrong department, like if a student emails the accommodation office about a tuition fee question or a staff member phones IT about a payroll issue. These then need to be forwarded to the right person which causes delays.

AI can receive new requests from students and staff and categorise each one (exams, HR, accommodation or finance, for instance), so it’s sent to the right department. The AI does the sending too. It can also tell when a message is urgent like if it involves a deadline or complaint. It marks the message as such, so the recipient sees and knows to prioritise it. The result is faster response times and staff can then get on with more important work.

Self-service systems improve campus services

Self-service systems let students and staff take care of admin tasks on their own without having to call anyone or even visit an office. This is done through a login portal on the university website or app where users can then check information or select their question and get an instant automated response. Self-service systems are usually provided through a university’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) or student management software, and can be configured by the IT team to suit the university’s staff and student needs.

More complicated requests are forwarded to admin staff and appointments can be booked when students do need in-person help. A queue management system can further save time here as it eliminates physical queues. In fact, research shows that these systems can reduce the actual time people wait from about 27 minutes to 15 minutes, and reduce the time people feel they’ve waited from about 32 minutes to 11 minutes (thanks to regular updates on their position). Queue management software lets people take a digital ticket via a kiosk or app and places them in a virtual queue. So no one has to hang about waiting in a corridor and admin staff are free to focus on the student they’re supposed to currently be helping and not managing who’s next.

Robotic process automation reduces repetitive admin

Robotic process automation, or RPA, is software automation that uses bots to perform repetitive and time-consuming tasks that staff would usually do. Impressively, RPA can do the same tasks 40-80% faster than humans, and also does them with 20-40% fewer errors, Deloitte reveals. RPA can process student enrolment forms, update records across multiple systems simultaneously, generate and send bulk emails, and handle invoice or payroll processing, just to give a few examples.

Staff are then no longer stuck doing data entry and can move onto work that benefits from a human doing it. Universities can typically purchase RPA from established vendors like Ui Path or Microsoft Power Automate. The IT department can then integrate it with existing systems like student records, HR and finance platforms. This makes it a fairly simple process that doesn’t involve any major infrastructure overhaul.

Administrative bloat isn’t inevitable in higher education. The right tools can help universities cut out unnecessary admin and free up staff to better support students.