Quality of Education now offered in many institutions of higher education, both general and technical, requires a thorough review and correction by the agencies concerned like NAAC of UGC, NBA of AICTE. Many Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), specially technical and professional colleges offering Engineering, Pharmacy, MBA and MCA are almost forced to shut down as there are no takers.
Thousands of seats are lying vacant in hundreds of colleges in Andhra Pradesh. Quality in any service or product is the hallmark that decides its c o n s u m e r acceptabi l i ty a n d consequential occupation of market space in these days of free flow of demand and supply factors. Though some attention is given for the maintenance of quality of products in the industrial sphere, it was grossly neglected in the service sector. A special mention can be made with regard to the deterioration of standards of education at all levels, primary, secondary, UG and PG, including Research.
The nation is already paying heavily for this gross negligence. Though statutory bodies like UGC and AICTE are created at the National level with a specific purpose of coordinating, maintaining and promoting quality education, they proved a thorough failure in this aspect due to their acts of omission and commission. The Universities and their affiliated colleges greatly drifted from their specified path, focusing more on numbers and resorted to all kinds of unethical and non-academic p r a c t i c e s , policies and p r o c e d u r e s making the s t u d e n t s u l t i m a t e
victims. At the end of the day, students who became the sacrificial goat are blamed and criticized for their lower levels of knowledge, technical know how, attitudinal deficiencies, disregard to value system and their ethos.
In fact, the role supposed to be played by the so called temples of learning is not up to the mark and deserves to be corrected though not condemned. The general apathy for the students overall development and efflorescence of their fullest personality by providing opportunities/ facilities for showcasing their prowess and potentialities by many HEIs for their own reasons and commercial motives is the root cause for this sad state of affairs. There are institutions which give priority to admissions and examinations only as if there is nothing in between. There are colleges indulging in all kinds of malpractices in the conduct of examinations to boost their pass percentage. The classroom instructions, practical work in labs, workshops for hands on experience are receiving rude shock in these so called HEIs. This does not mean that all HEIs are doing or encouraging bad practices. There are very good Institutions on the educational map of India having National and International reputation for their high standards and have carved a niche for themselves among the intellectual circles following scrupulously the best methods and methodologies. Though some people justify and reconcile themselves that this dilution and adulteration of standards of education in HEIs is because of their multiplicity in hundreds and thousands, the failure on the part of bodies like UGC, AICTE, Universities, State Councils of Higher Education, NCERT, SCERT etc., cannot be overlooked and forgiven. They cannot escape from taking this criticism. At least now they have to take stern measures to set right things to save lakhs of students being fed and nurtured in pernicious and polluted practices and systems adopted in many of our modern educational super bazaars. Then only India will have great future as Knowledge Hub exporting largest number of technical trained manpower to cater to the needs of both developed and developing countries.
If India is to rise to the status of Superpower by reaping maximum benefit of our demographic dividend, it can become only by producing intellectuals, scientists, scholars, academicians, technocrats, innovators of high caliber by bringing them up in HEIs adopting proved sound practices to provide quality education and not through our military/economic power, or by having crores of unemployable educated youth in the country. Only quality oriented products coming out of the portals of HEIs will elevate the status of our Nation and provide dignified and decent careers to youngsters. Such concern alone will make lakhs of UGs and PGs come out with employable skills acceptable to MNCs. The talk that our educated youth are not having employability skills, fulfilling industry expectations etc. can easily be countered by fixing achievable bench marks in all activities of all stake holders of HEIs, closely monitoring and reviewing the progress by a group of academicians and experts headed by the head of HEI, accountable to University or state/ national level bodies. This step on the part of all HEIs will definitely make every difference and our HEIs can also claim that they are also producing useful and purposeful UGs and PGs armed with correct Knowledge, Skills and Attitude [KSA]. It is in this context that creation of Internal Quality Assurance Cells (IQACs] in HEIs is being mooted by UGC, a statutory body created to monitor standards in HEIs, as early as 1956 through an Act of Parliament. It established NAAC as an autonomous body under Section 12 [CCC] of its Act in Sept 1994. It is entrusted with the task of performance evaluation, assessment and accreditation of universities and colleges in the country. It is supposed to take measures so that all HEIs are empowered to maximize their resources, opportunities and capabilities. NAAC has been instilling a momentum of quality consciousness among all institutions aiming at continuous improvementand is triggering ‘quality culture’ by enhancing the awareness of Institutional Quality Assurance with all stakeholders.
All stakeholders are to be fully engaged in the endeavours of quality assurance of HEIs. Therefore, it is imperative that HEIs are motivated to establish their own internal mechanism for sustenance, assurance and enhancement of quality culture of education imparted by them as such internalization of quality would be invaluable in the enhancement of quality within the institution. The efficacy of external quality assessment would therefore be determined by the effectiveness of such institutional internal quality systems and processes. In fact the IQACs were established in many HEIs, as post accreditation quality sustenance activity. They are proactive and functioning effectively on sound lines. Based on their success story, from April 1, 2007, NAAC is propagating to have such mechanism created prior to the accreditation in all HEIs which would
help establish quality culture in them. The UGC has recognized this initiative and it has taken a policy decision to direct all HEIs to establish IQACs for which it has decided to provide seed financial assistance. It covers all HEIs, like Universities established under Central/State Acts, Deemed Universities, under Section 3 of UGC Act, colleges recognized under Section 2 f of UGC Act, all other non 2 [f] colleges affiliated to universities and all Institutions of National importance.
The IQAC is meant for planning, guiding and monitoring Quality Assurance [QA] and Quality Enhancement [QE] activities of HEI.
It would channelise and systematize the efforts and measures of an Institution towards academic excellence and be a driving force for ushering in quality by working out interventional strategies to remove deficiencies and enhance quality. The IQAC Structure: It shall be constituted under the chairmanship of Head of HEI, assisted by a Director [Member Secretary] in case a University or Coordinator in the case of a college. This position may be held as an additional charge by the Faculty Member concerned or a new position of full time Director/Coordinator may be created. Besides Chairman and Director/Coordinator, there shall be five [in the case of colleges] eight [in the case of universities] senior teachers, one senior administrative official, two [in the case of a college] three [in the case of a university] external experts of quality management/ industry/local community as members. All these members shall be nominated by the Head of HEI in consultation with the Academic Council in the case of a university or Academic Committee in the case of a college. The tenure of membership shall be for two years. IQAC shall meet at least once in a quarter. The quorum for the meeting shall be two thirds of total number of members. The Agenda, minutes and Action Taken Reports are to be documented with official signatures and maintained electronically retrievable format. Functions: To develop and apply quality bench marks/parameters for various academic and administrative activities of HEI. * To facilitate the creation of learner-centric environment congenial for quality enhancement.
* To take steps for faculty maturation to adopt methods for participatory teaching and learning process.
* To arrange for feed back responses from students, parents, and other stake holders on quality related issues.
* To disseminate information on various quality parameters of higher education.
* To organize inter and intra institutional workshops, seminars on quality-related themes and promotion of quality circles.
* To document various programmes/activities of HEI, leading to quality improvement.
* To act as a nodal agency of the HEI for conducting quality-related activities, including adoption and dissemination of good practices.
* To develop and maintain institutional database through MIS for enhancing institutional quality.
* To prepare Annual Quality Assurance Report [AQAR] of HEI based on parameters/assessment
criteria developed by the relevant quality assurance body like NAAC, NBA in the prescribed format.
* To arrive at bi annual development of Quality Radars [QRs] and ranking of integral units of HEI
based on the IQAR.
* To interact with State Quality Assurance cells in the pre and post accreditation quality assessment, sustenance and enhancement endeavours.
The AQAR shall be approved by the HEI such as Syndicate, Governing Council/body for the follow up action for necessary quality enhancement measures. The AQAR shall be submitted regularly to the affiliating university,state-level quality assurance bodies, NAAC, NBA by a college. All HEIs shall submit AQAR and QRs and follow up reports to UGC as and when called for. The IQAC must create its exclusive window on its institutional website to regularly report on its activities as well as for hosting AQAR.
Benefits: Effective functioning of IQAC ensure heightened level of clarity and focus in institutional functioning towards quality enhancement, ensure internalization of quality culture, ensure enhancement and integration among various activities of the institution and institutionalize good practices, provide sound basis for decision making, act as a dynamic system for quality changes in the HEI, build organized methodology of documentation and internal communication.’
The State Quality Assurance cell [SQAC] and affiliating universities shall monitor the functioning of IQAC in the colleges and NAAC/ NBA/other affiliating bodies shall monitor the functioning of universities and Institutions of National Importance. NAAC/NBA peer teams will interact with IQACs.
The detailed format for AQAR of IQAC with 4 sections and searching 42 points in section B, if answered honestly, will unravel the realistic situation of not only curricular, co/extra curricular activities of the institution but also probes the roles of stake holders of the institution, students, faculty, administrative staff, parents, local community, management, funding agencies, etc.. These 42 points pressurize/influence the persons concerned to do definitely something concrete and positive in the direction quality improvement in all spheres. It is noteworthy that UGC is providing seed money during the Ninth plan of Rs 5 lakhs to each university and 3 lakhs to each college as one time grant to meet the establishment and strengthening expenditure of IQAC to all
universities and colleges which are under sec 2 [f] and 12 b of the UGC Act.
Already many universities/ deemed to be universities/ colleges established their IQAC and reaping the benefits. The universities and colleges in AP are lagging behind despite the offer of financial support. Many professional colleges in AP realized that quality consciousness and maintenance is vital and crux for their survival. It is high time that they shall wake up and take earnest measures in the direction of quality improvement of education imparted in their HEIs. Let us hope good sense will dawn on the minds of those highly commercial managements and save lakhs of students from unemployability.
(The author is Dean, SLCs Institute of Engineering and Technology)