Quality is the utmost concern for all Engineering Educators. To assure quality in Engineering Education, accreditation of courses by a certified body is a must. Nowadays quality and accreditation has become buzzwords all over the world. Western countries like the US, Canada, UK, Germany etc, are known for high standards in engineering education and that is the primary reason for our students pursuing M.S. courses in universities abroad. Movement of manpower especially technical manpower from one country to another made people realise the need for international mechanism to ensure minimum acceptable level of quality of technical education.
The technological revolution and knowledge explosion compels one to take deliberate steps to enhance the standards of technical education and to keep it at par with global standards. The greater demand for engineering and technological education throughout the world coupled with the provisions of GATT has put great strain on the whole spectrum as it has to cope with globalisation of economy and rapid technical advances. The need of laying down quality and standards for the education process has therefore become an urgent need.
Standardisation does not mean discouragement to innovative educational methodologies or curbing individual institutional initiatives but only setting of benchmarks which must be crossed by all institutions in time allowing for further rising of quality standards and benchmarks. The accreditation bodies play a major role in defining excellence and specifying and setting up of specifications for quality assessment of the education process and help identifying weaknesses, develop strategies to remove them and assist in the creation of an academic atmosphere which encourages originality, creativity and innovative ability.
Washington Accord
A right step in this direction was taken by six countries in 1989 by signing the Washington Accord. It is an international agreement between registering bodies of member countries accrediting academic engineering programmes. It recognises substantial equivalence in the accreditation of parameters and programmes. The original first six signatory countries are the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. As per the provisions of the Washington Accord, a country becomes eligible for full fledged membership after two years of provisional membership if all other members unanimously agree to include the country as a full fledged member.
Accordingly Hong Kong China (1995), South Africa (1999), Japan (2005), Singapore (2006), Korea and Chinese Taipei (2007) and Malaysia (2009) were admitted as permanent signatories increasing the total membership to 13. The purpose of Washington Accord is the recognition of equivalence of accredited engineering programmes leading to the award of engineering degree and this applies only to engineers. It is essentially a quality assurance process and based on world best practices. The signatories of this agreement accept the following rules:
· Accept that accreditation procedures are comparable
· Accept one another’s accredited degrees from the date of admission as full member
· Agree to identify and encourage implementation of best practice
· Accept mutual monitoring
· Accept that it applies to accreditations in home jurisdiction only
· Accept the need to encourage licensing and registration authorities to apply the agreement
The salient features of the rigorous criteria for accreditation covers three important areas:
1) Input parameters: Quality of students enrolling and intake strategies
2) Processing Parameters: Teaching/Learning, Faculty quality, quality of courses, Non-engineering subjects taught, lab experiments, assessment
3) Output Indicators: Employability of graduates, Graduate competencies, academic progressions
By the membership of Washington Accord, the
curriculum of non-campus based courses run by professional bodies like Institution of Engineers India will also come under the ambit of accreditation process by the competent accreditation body of the country.
Besides the Washington Accord, there are some more international accords like Bologna declaration of 1999, Sydney Accord of 2001, Dublin Accord of 2002 limiting their applicability to specific regions in maintaining the quality and standard of technical education. There are six provisional members as of today in the Washington Accord namely Germany, India, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
Need & Preparation of India
To tone-up the quality and standard of technical education in India, National Board of Accreditation (NBA) was constituted in September 1994 under section 10(u) of All India Council of Technical Education Act of 1987.The NBA, with its maturity and vision made a determined proposal to the signatories of Washington Accord to admit India as a provisional member on June 21, 2007 in the eighth biennial meeting of the Washington Accord signatories at Washington D.C , U.S.A. NBA is the only authorised body in India entrusted with the task of undertaking accreditation of technical educational programmes and it evaluates the quality of programmes offered by colleges and universities. India was conferred provisional membership in 2007 subject to the review in 2009.With the provisional membership, NBA accreditation system gets international recognition.
Washington Accord provides Mentors and Reviewers to guide the provisional member countries to streamline and update their accreditation parameters and process in tune with international standards. The membership of India in Washington Accord would facilitate mobility of Engineering graduates and professionals at international level. Being the largest exporter of technical manpower to other countries, developed and developing, India should be more concerned about fulfilling, or even excel international benchmarks of accreditation of programmes to see that the large number of technical manpower or human capital is accepted and employed internationally.
By being a permanent member of Washington Accord, the Indian undergraduate engineering degree would be accorded an equal status in all member countries and they are recognised as degrees of high international standards. At present only degrees from famed IITs, IISC, IIIT, BITS, NITs are getting some recognition worthy of high honour. India has to improve the quality of its second and third rung engineering colleges.
The scenario of technical education in India presents a paradoxical picture of having a very few good institutions known for their standards and quality with international recognition and reputation and sub-standard and below average institutions adopting all possible unethical unacademic practices producing ill equipped graduates with outdated knowledge. With large scale expansion of engineering degree education particularly through private managed institutions, and its consequent problems of lack of adequate qualified faculty to teach, insufficient infrastructure in terms of constructed area, labs, workshops, equipment, library, obsolete teaching and training methodologies, the entire gambit of teaching and learning in many of the engineering colleges is in jeopardy affecting the very quality of education.
The half-baked products coming out of these so-called citadels of learning are not in a position to fulfill industry expectations. As per the recent NASSCOM study only 10 percent of the graduates are having employable skills and other 90percent are thrown to winds creating frustration in the students’ concerned and great disappointment and dismay in the parents. The wide gap between industry requirements and institutions curriculum is further victimising the student community for no fault of theirs. Even after four years of UG education a B.Tech candidate is seeking the help of finishing schools or coaching centers to equip himself with the core competencies or skill sets to be accepted by an industry or company.
It is a sad story of the products of many engineering colleges. The sanctioning and regulatory authorities like AICTE, University and Government are lacking the will power to streamline the systems, policies and procedures. The sate government is just helpless, as it cannot directly take any punitive action against an erring institution under the existing acts and rules. The AICTE has nearly 24 functions but it is focussing only on approvals of new colleges /branches, increase of intake or conversion, change of name and place of the college. This fact was admitted by Prof. Mantha, the chairman of AICTE at a meeting of managements of engineering colleges held at Hyderabad recently.
The so called technical universities having a number of engineering colleges affiliated to it, with their limitations in terms of number of faculty are not in a position to exercise any corrective power to set right the institutions. Hence all the inspections/fact finding visits/surprise checks of the university/AICTE are reduced to routine rituals. Some college managements are smarter in circumventing or hoodwinking the specifications and stipulations, documents, declarations and attestations. They are able to get the attestation of the District magistrate on all their documents just like that with no effort by paying huge agreed sums. All this is resulting into the continuation of the same pathetic teaching and learning ambiance on many campuses. The cascading affect of all this is to produce products with degrees but not engineers with mastery of skill sets/competencies.
To correct the situation and enhance the quality and standards to be at par with global standards, NBA has introduced a policy of accreditation of engineering courses offered in engineering colleges, both private and government and Universities. This apex body, NBA, chalked out a detailed programme to make documentary and physical verification, by the committee of experts, the infrastructure facilities, availability and adequacy of qualified faculty, their service conditions, performance appraisals, faculty development programmes, student development programmes, liaison with parents, functioning of proctorial/Mentor system, student centric and friendly approach, pre-placement training, placement percentages, technical fests organised, paper presentations by the faculty, sponsoring faculty and students to other conferences and technical events, incentive schemes to faculty to do Ph.D, opportunities to hone and showcase students creative and original talents, R&D facilities, Consultative service, value added courses, examination format, evaluation process, transport, canteen, hostels, internet accessibility, college vision and mission, departments vision and mission, the rank and level of the companies that conducted campus schools or coaching centers to equip himself with the core competencies or skill sets to be accepted by an industry or company.
It is a sad story of the products of many engineering colleges. The sanctioning and regulatory authorities like AICTE, University and Government are lacking the will power to streamline the systems, policies and procedures. The sate government is just helpless, as it cannot directly take any punitive action against an erring institution under the existing acts and rules. The AICTE has nearly 24 functions but it is focussing only on approvals of new colleges /branches, increase of intake or conversion, change of name and place of the college. This fact was admitted by Prof. Mantha, the chairman of AICTE at a meeting of managements of engineering colleges held at Hyderabad recently.
The so called technical universities having a number of engineering colleges affiliated to it, with their limitations in terms of number of faculty are not in a position to exercise any corrective power to set right the institutions. Hence all the inspections/fact finding visits/surprise checks of the university/AICTE are reduced to routine rituals. Some college managements are smarter in circumventing or hoodwinking the specifications and stipulations, documents, declarations and attestations. They are able to get the attestation of the District magistrate on all their documents just like that with no effort by paying huge agreed sums. All this is resulting into the continuation of the same pathetic teaching and learning ambiance on many campuses. The cascading affect of all this is to produce products with degrees but not engineers with mastery of skill sets/competencies.
To correct the situation and enhance the quality and standards to be at par with global standards, NBA has introduced a policy of accreditation of engineering courses offered in engineering colleges, both private and government and Universities. This apex body, NBA, chalked out a detailed programme to make documentary and physical verification, by the committee of experts, the infrastructure facilities, availability and adequacy of qualified faculty, their service conditions, performance appraisals, faculty development programmes, student development programmes, liaison with parents, functioning of proctorial/Mentor system, student centric and friendly approach, pre-placement training, placement percentages, technical fests organised, paper presentations by the faculty, sponsoring faculty and students to other conferences and technical events, incentive schemes to faculty to do Ph.D, opportunities to hone and showcase students creative and original talents, R&D facilities, Consultative service, value added courses, examination format, evaluation process, transport, canteen, hostels, internet accessibility, college vision and mission, departments vision and mission, the rank and level of the companies that conducted campus drives, feedback from the companies on the alumni performance, systems present for alumni interaction and the overall brand image of the institution.
The expert committee besides physical verification of what is stated in the documents furnished by the college concerned they interact privately and separately with the management, principal, staff, students and parents. They scrutinize the above with regard to each programme and accord or reject accreditation to that programme. The accreditation given to any programme is valid for the ensuing 3 or 5 years. After that period, the college must seek NBA accreditation to that programme to continue the accreditation status. Such accredited programmes in various colleges have greater acceptability by the students and parents and the annual tuition fee payable for such programmes is slightly higher than the normal tuition fee prescribed by the government. Thus NBA accreditation gives some credibility to these courses and infuses confidence in students and parents.
India is recognised as the knowledge hub of the world. Sir Tin Berne Lee, the inventor of World Wide Web stated in the www 2011 conference held at Hyderabad recently that India is already a world leader in the IT arena and to sustain that position it needed to have right courses in Universities to train the people. In the next 20-25 years, 60 to 65 percent of Indian population will be youth whereas it is anticipated that 18 to 20 percent will be youth population in western countries. This further necessitates the supply of well-trained technical manpower in the times to come by India to other countries. Hence India has to gear up and make dedicated efforts to enhance the standard of technical education in the country comparable to institutions of international reputation like MITS, Stanford, Cambridge, Harvard etc. Let us not bloat in the misplaced glory of the availability of highest number of technical manpower but see that they are accepted by the advanced countries.
By virtue of becoming a provisional member of Washington Accord, two years time is given to bring its academic programmes, curriculum and syllabus, examination and evaluation system to the international level and revise its accreditation system to make it fully outcome based, with credit system, continuous evaluation for improved learning is to be introduced. Focus on design, research and innovation has to increase. The signatory countries are ready to provide all mentoring support to make India a full fledged member to bring the course and programmes of engineering to the level of world class category.
India approached Washington Accord in 2008 for sending mentors for the review of accreditation system being practiced in India to become a full fledged member by 2009.But India’s bid to become a full fledged member was not acceded because our preparation was not well and we were not accepted as permanent signatory. However as a special case, India’s provisional membership was extended for another two years. Hence, India is due to become a permanent signatory of Washington Accord in 2011 provided all the member countries unanimously agree for its inclusion after satisfying themselves that the accreditation procedures, policies, practices, methodologies adopted by NBA are adequate and on par with accreditation procedures available in those countries.
Challenges & Issues
It is in this context, we have to ponder over many challenges or issues arising. We have to focus our attention towards steps needed by us for preparing for this Accord so that we could be treated at par in international community. The basic problem lies in the curriculum and its implementation. The curriculum has to be made competency or outcome based. Though NBA has taken steps to revise its criteria in June 2009 on line with the guidelines of Washington Accord, the signatory countries are not satisfied. They wanted to be sure whether these criterion and standards are implemented in Indian institutions or not. Hence the concept of competency-based curriculum is the dire need in every technical programme offered by an autonomous university or institution.
The second issue involved in this process is the criteria, policies and procedures used by the signatory countries for accreditation should be comparable. It clearly means the standard of the curriculum, faculty and staff, learning resources, laboratories, libraries etc. should be at par with developed countries. This requires huge financial investments. Another key issue is the workload pattern of the faculty as adopted in the advanced countries. This involves increase in number of faculty in quality and quantity.
In spite of offering best possible salaries it is very difficult to find suitable candidates in government colleges and universities. This problem is more precarious in self-financed colleges. Finding candidates holding PG Degree in engineering is difficult and finding suitable Ph.D. holders is definitely a more difficult task. So well thought out action plan to create physical and human resources is required to satisfy the demands of Washington Accord. The performance and professional development activities of the faculty are a grey area which requires an impetus from both college managements and regulatory bodies.
Steps to strengthen NBA to make it independent must be taken at the earliest. Accrediting about 10000 technical institutions and their programmes is gigantic task and requires huge resources. Not only the number of Ph.D. holders is to be increased and they should be given incentives to join teaching profession. Accreditation should gradually be made mandatory for public funding like financial aid etc. Institutions need to become more autonomous and accountable to compete at global level. Nearly more than 50 percent of the Indian institutions would not be able to meet the Washington Accord standards. Immediately imposing the new standards without funding and availability of qualified faculty will produce a difficult situation. Instead of making regional efforts to enhance the standards of technical education under the banner of different Accords it is better to involve UNESCO and evolve more widely accepted system taking into account the concerns and ground realities of developing nations also.
(The author is Dean, SLC ‘s Institute of Engineering and Technology)