Quality Management in Higher Education

“Education”- a boon bestowed upon us by God, a panacea, a remedy for every social, economic, and life problems. “Education”- meant to enlighten, empower and inculcate wisdom within each of us is being rendered useless and has entirely deviated from its motive and instead of serving expansion, upliftment, and evolution of beings has just shrinked to the means of earning two square meals. Education a birth right of every individual has become the rarest of rare luxuries which only the filthy and affluent can rejoice to afford. Education which once fostered values, ethics, and humanity have commercialized professionalized and has just confined to money minting and selling. We proudly boast of having reached so far in science, technology and other issues but does that fulfill the objective of education? Is our education nurturing the young buds to bloom and spread the fragrance of patriotism, character, oneness and brotherhood in the world is a question that needs grave attention.

“What the hell is it? You bastard, idiot. I will throw you out. I am simply wasting my resources over you. You should be ashamed of it. See your friend he is so well performing, scoring such good percentages, and you…get lost”.
This is how most of our parents react on being acquainted with our statement of marks and its reason simply being that today the marks have become the sole brilliance and talent determining factor of a student.  Our present education and education system, conspicuously the higher education simply lays emphasis over the marks.  Ask anybody what do you expect from your education and within no time you get an apt reply; a white collor job, bungalow, luxurious car and bla bla bla… 
These desires out of our education is the connotation of the pit, our education system lies in. It is even more accentuated by the fact that even after investing a handsome amount of money and the most productive age of our life in education the outcome is that only a few are absorbed by the companies and rest lie wandering searching for jobs, leading to stress, worries, negligence which eventually lead to suicides, crimes and addiction. What actually do these facts reveal? Doesn’t this reflect to us the stark realities of our overwhelming joy, and proud claim of our education? Ponder over…, deeply.
Quality of higher education is a multi-dimensional concept. It lies in effectiveness of transmitting knowledge and skill; the authenticity, content, coverage and depth of information; availability of reading/teaching materials; help in removing obstacles to learning; applicability of knowledge in solving the real life problems; fruitfulness of knowledge in personal and social domains; convergence of content and variety of knowledge over space (countries and regions) and different sections of the people; cost-effectiveness and administrative efficiency.
 Today is the age of innovation and specialization. And with this fast moving techno-age, the Indian educational system seems to go nowhere. Though we are aware about the progressive minds of Indian students all over the world, we tend to overlook the fact that most of them find abode abroad in USA or Australia. Let us focus on some stark realities.
Indian education is full of innumerable pages of obsolete, outdated theory with no innovation or any practical work.

Student, Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Indore

The eagerly awaited new textbooks have nothing more than flashier cover pages. Moreover no importance is given to co-curricular activities. All this results in an all Indian varsity comprising of bored students who consider studies as an interminable disease and teachers who are victims of disinterest. This also increases suicides among students.
It is high time educationists start moving with the times. They need to realise that they can no longer continue to burden the youth with unimaginable pressure and simultaneously provide miniscule encouragement to pursue their creativity. An entirely new approach has to be adopted which focuses upon innovation and practical aspects of education. And the sooner this reform is brought, the better it is for us. Today the very usage of the word ‘education’ seems inappropriate! As is often heard, education at the University is mostly worked by the age-old method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinity of a lot of books and hoping that something would pass from one to the other.The course content is outdated, the methods of teaching, if at all there is any teaching going on, are old-fashioned and are thus not finding acceptance amongst students in this ever changing, competitive world.

Whosoever thought that moving from school to college would give one the right impetus to pursue one’s interests, research, do some really scholarly work would have had the shock of his/her life when faced with the bitter reality of university system of education.  Universities follow a simple three step guide to success:

1.    Attend all lectures. You might sit at the back and do your own work while the professor keeps on yapping, all that hardly matters for after that one lecture, you secure yourself marks for attendance! Who thought that just sitting in a lecture, not paying any attention could fetch you marks!! Could it have been made more convenient???

2.    For your assignments, you usually end up getting questions which don’t require you to really exercise your mental faculties. For that would mean that the professor too will have to read your answer, understand it and that’s too much of an effort! Just keep buttering the professor up and happy with your ‘dedication’ towards the subject  you get excellent marks which just up your percentage!!

3.    For your examinations, mug up as much as you can. Eat sleep drink and drown yourself in your syllabi. That done, you are ready for your final test. Once in the examination hall, just vomit it all out. Don’t worry about coherence. Nobody worries about that. More the number of points, the better your answer.

Follow these golden rules and it will open all paths to a glorious and ‘rewarding’ career!!
 Emphasis is only laid on education from the examination point of view and less on developing thinking and intellectual minds. Participation in extra curricular activities is not encouraged. At times the professors are not available if help is needed in their subject. So if someone wants to pursue dramatics, he/she has to do it one his/her own accord and when that person decides to focus on studies, adequate infrastructure and facilities are not made available to them. Thus the student finds himself doubly trapped.

Our system of education needs a complete overhaul, a make-over. Everything from the course to the teaching styles, from the infrastructure to the extra curricular activities will have to change, underlining the redundancy in our education system. It is remorseful that professors spend 90% of their time preparing content when they should be spending that time teaching it. World class content prepared by Nobel laureates and the like is already available on the internet. The authorities will have to soon rise from their deep slumber and take notice. We don’t want to produce another batch of monitored and engineered individuals. We want people who are competent and fully capable of putting their education to use in their own lives and for the betterment of our society.

“Education” as quoted by mahatma Gandhi as :-

 “Education is what enlightens your heart, inculcates wisdom”

is dramatically loosing its meaning. Today the meaning of education is reduced to the fact that it will go on to become our source of bread and butter – nothing more and nothing less. Is this what education stands for in our life? Is not education a way to make life better? I believe that education is not an accessory to life but it is a necessity.

The question is; what truly is education?
In my opinion education is the vehicle of knowledge, self-preservation and success. Education not only gives us a platform to succeed, but also the knowledge of social conduct, strength, character and self respect. The greatest gift education gives us is the knowledge of unconditional love and a set of values.
These values include the simple difference between right and wrong, a belief in God, the importance of hard work and self respect. Education is a continuous learning experience, learning from people, learning from success and failures, learning from leaders and followers and then growing up to be the person we are meant to be.
Value based education is a three fold development of any individual of any gender and age, but most importantly of a child. Education tries to develop three aspects: physique, mentality and character. Even though physique and mentality are important, they are menaces without the third because character is the greatest of these. Education plays a huge role in precisely this area.
Value based education is a tool which not only provides us a profession which we can pursue but also a purpose in life. The purpose of our life is undoubtedly to know oneself and be ourselves. We cannot do it unless we learn to identify ourselves with all that lives.
Education gives us this very knowledge, the most supreme knowledge of knowing oneself, which helps us to make our life better and purposeful.
I believe that we are making our new generation, who are studying in thousands of schools across India, engage in nothing but crude cramming. Text books, in my opinion are for reference and not for plagiarizing in form of answers.
Truthfully, if I were a teacher, I would not look for answers blatantly copied from text books and presented in fancy calligraphy with proper underlining of important phrases and decorated with colourful ink through out the paper.
I would in fact, look for answers which are intelligent, creative and which give me a subtle introduction and an impression of the person who writes it. Why don’t we have a system of examination where every subject is to be tested in a way such that the examinee gives answers based on his or her observation? It can be employed in a vast range of subjects.
I have to confess that I longed to write answers that were purely mine during exams and not what every one of my peers was writing. Having an opinion about every aspect of life and of the world makes a person complete, well rounded and knowledgeable and if we do not give this opportunity to the students who are on the verge of adulthood then we are robbing ourselves of ideas rich in enthusiasm and innocence.
It has been observed scientifically that we learn more effectively by listening and observing than plain cramming. Our educational system needs to evaluate its priority and understand that learning should not be coordinated with cramming. We take pride that our educational system is far more advanced and progressive in terms of academic standards in comparison with the U.S.A. or U.K. But in terms of creativity, independent study and an objective approach towards a subject we feel inadequate in experience.
The objective of education in a country like India, which has a glorious heritage and can boast of diversity in geography, culture, values and beliefs very rarely seen in this wide world, should be to educate a student of the value system which is indispensable to live a successful life. There has been a lapse in our value system which the educational institutes should inculcate in a student – that is why there are increased incidences of teenage pregnancies, MMS scandals, student prostitution and academic pressure related suicides.
It has been said that ignorance is bliss. Then again, without education we never experience true bliss. What good would be our life if we fail to pass on something substantial to the generation that is building itself? It would be a shame not to realize that the purpose of education is bliss and that ignorance is nothing but unpleasantness in the face of opportunities that the world has to offer to us.
A balanced approach towards a student’s academic career will enhance ones life and make him/her a better contributor to our society, country and to human civilization

As Nelson Mandela always says:
“You do not have to be phenomenal to do phenomenal things”.

Points Needing Attention:
•    The vision of any institution should be to inculcate knowledge and power to the younger.
•    Vision and Mission has a great impact on learning. The mission of educational system in India should be the all-round development of children. However, the present vision/mission of educational system in India is just to impart degrees/diplomas without any basic knowledge.
•    The present mission of educational system is to give degrees and make money out of it. There has been lot of commercialization in higher education.
•    Examination system & evaluation system ignores skills, and aptitudes among students.
•    The present educational system has failed to shape the future youth, leaders in India.
•    There is lack of total personality development. The system churns out indifferently trained, poorly motivated students, who have few job prospects, if any; so it is unlikely that they will display leadership qualities.
•    Reservations based on religion and caste. Undeserving students (rich) buying education. Lack of discipline, lack of qualified staff; Lack of knowledge, lack of equipment, lack of staff.
•    Creativity and independent thinking is not encouraged. Students cannot express fluently in any language. There is no value of ‘good human beings’ and no scope to develop ‘potentials’