Abstract
Faculty development programs help to enhance the knowledge, skills and abilities of teachers. The faculty development initiatives are aimed at improving the quality of higher education in a country. This paper attempts to analyze the impact of faculty development programs on performance of faculty members as individuals and on organizational performance. The major objective of the study is to emphasize the training and development needs in public sector universities and to solicit suggestions for improvement in existing faculty training and development programs while using Punjab University as a case in point. The study adopts a mixed method approach including survey and in-depth interviews. For survey a questionnaire was designed and 95 permanent faculty members were selected as respondents while for in-depth interviews 8 permanent faculty members were selected as respondents. The results were analyzed using non-parametric tests which included Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis H test and thematic analysis. The results suggested that there is a positive relation between faculty training and performance. Personal motivation is the most significant factor affecting individual performance ultimately leading to the organizational growth. To conclude, the study revealed that there is positive impact of faculty training and development practices on performance of faculty members which ultimately affects the overall performance of the university positively. It was also observed that faculty of University of the Punjab was highly motivated towards receiving faculty development opportunities. The paper provides policy recommendations for both the university administration and the Higher Education Commission including organizing faculty development programs more frequently, nomination of the candidates for such development programs on merit as well as need basis, equality of opportunities for female faculty members, increase in frequency of faculty training and development programs and continuous improvement in the programs through regular review and feedback mechanism.