Quality Management In Higher Education

Higher Education has been defined as the mother of all professions. The higher education in India has been confronted with many challenges as there is huge expansion of education to 1500 universities nationwide. For high quality education, we need world-class institutions. We also need bright students to opt for research. The fundamental purpose of education is to make students employable. Employability does not mean job specific skills, but it means the general level of preparedness of entry level employees. It requires a combination of basic, higher order and affective employability skills and traits.Presently, Indian education system caters to the need of more than 10 million people. The higher education enrollment is only 13 per cent. There is an urgent need for expanding the higher education base in the country. The various levels of education are - Primary Education, Secondary Education, Higher Secondary Education and Professional Education which includes Medical, Management, Engineering, Agriculture and other Technical Education The quality in higher education is the product of 3Es - Excellence, Efficiency and Equity. The new developments in higher education includes increased supply of education and the emergence of new education providers such as multi-national companies, corporate universities and media companies. In recent years, India’s rapid growth has fuelled a massive increase in the demand for higher education. The potential impact of globalization on higher education provides both opportunities and challenges. The paper discusses the research scenario regarding various issues underlying it. It also focuses on impact of globalization on Higher Education. The paper attempts to bring on surface the factors affecting Higher Education and suggestions to improve the quality of Higher Education.

Introduction: Education is a process by which a person’s body, mind and character are formed, synchronized and strengthened. This enables him to develop his all round personality and exploring the best in him or her. It is a humanizing process for transformation, to be able to think, relate to others meaningfully and understand the world and society clearly. Development of any country depends 20 percent on natural resources, 16 percent on infrastructure and 64 percent on human resources. This calls for a high quality and well trained human resources from our education systems.

Higher Education has been defined as the mother of all professions. It is also said that higher education is the master key that opens many doors and ensures the all-round development of a person. The education imparted at the higher education level has a direct impact on the students.

Chairman, Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Indore                                                   
Director (MBA) Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Indore
Executive Director, Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Indore
Education is important not merely as means to other ends, but it is an attribute that is valued in itself, by most individuals. It is a priority for countries seeking to develop and sustain their level and pace of development. The universities should enjoy educational freedom and preserve their autonomy, while being fully accountable towards the society.

Indian higher education system is one of the largest in the world. It has undergone rapid development in the post independence era. Although the education system has been expanded significantly, the system has not been able to accomplish the real goals of higher education. The higher education in India has been confronted with many challenges as there is huge expansion of education to 1500 universities nationwide. At present, not a single Indian University finds a place in a recent international ranking of the top 200 universities of the world. When we talk of quality in higher education, it also embrace that many universities/colleges should become the demonstrators of excellence and at par with the best in the world. In this scenario, the top education providers would have to travel a long journey to reach the zenith and for inclusion in the international list.

For high quality education, we need world-class institutions. We also need bright students to opt for research. We need more young women and men acquiring Ph.D. Degrees. These needs of our country exist not only in Science and Technology, but across all areas of higher education. In the last five years we have expanded higher education facilities on an unprecedented scale. A number of new IITs, IIMs and IISERs have been started. More than 300 degree colleges have been opened in selected districts. Government spending on higher education has been enhanced manifold. However, the issue of quality remains. A major constraint is availability of good faculty. An obvious solution lies in encouraging a larger number of bright students to join Academics. (Prime Minister, Dr. ManmohanSingh while delivering the Convocation Address of IIT, Kanpur on July 3, 2010)

3.    Various levels of Education:
•    Primary Education
•    Secondary Education
•    Higher Secondary Education
•    Professional Education
(includes Medical, Management, Engineering, Agriculture and other Technical Education)

The enrolment rate for higher education in India as at present is only 10 percent which is much lower than many developed and even developing countries. This needs to be increased to 15 percent by 2012. We have 300 Universities and 18000 Colleges as at present. As suggested by UGC, we would require establishment of 16 new Central Universities and 14 General Universities. The expansion of colleges should be mainly on professional and technical courses.

4.    Education System in India: Presently, Indian education system caters to the need of more than 10 million people. The literacy rate is drastically improved from 18 per cent in 1951 to 65 per cent. Gender gap is also reduced. The literacy rate in male segment is 75 per cent where as in female segment, it is 54%. The higher education enrollment is only 13 per cent. There is an urgent need for expanding the higher education base in the country. At present, India’s higher education sector is failing. Barely seven per cent of the Indian get to the college; 99 percent of these lucky few receives indifferent teaching in dilapidated classrooms; They lack libraries, labs and computers; 80 percent are unemployable; meanwhile we console ourselves with the career of one per cent that go to the IITs, IIMs and a few other premier institutions. (Sri Avadh Ram, V.C., M.G. Kashi Vidyapith, Varanasi)

The fundamental purpose of education is to make students employable. Employability does not mean job specific skills, but it means the general level of preparedness of entry level employees. It requires a combination of basic, higher order and affective employability skills and traits.
•    Basic skills are Oral and written communication and Basic Arithmetic.
•     Higher order skills are problem solving, learning, creative,  innovative and decision making skills.
•     Affective Traits are Responsibility owning, positive attitude towards work, punctuality, interpersonal skills, self-confidence, enthusiasm, motivation, self-discipline, honesty, integrity and mental set of working.

The quality of higher education can be evaluated on following four criteria:
1.    Conformity with international standards
2.    Fitness of purpose or relevance
3.    Marketability in terms of value for money and
4.    Transformation with reference to Change Management.

It is only when our universities will be able to produce a generation of innovators not imitators, planners and paper pushers, job creators not job seekers and original thinkers and not routine followers, only then our university graduates can confidently echo “I think, therefore, I am” and transform our society into a vibrant, dynamic and living society. As has been well said, “I” in India should stand for “Innovation” and not “Imitation”. (Dr. Purandeswari, Minister of state for HRD, at convocation of Kuvempu University)

5.    Present Status of Higher Educational Institutions in India.

(Source: Excerpts from article of Sri C.S.Chakrabarti, Vice Chancellor,
West Bengal University of Animal & Fishery Sciences, Kolkatta)

Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing, layout, processes and procedures – (Tom Peters)

When we apply an integrated quality model as evolved by National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which is consistent with the Tom Peters Statement –
•    Out of 4000 Accredited colleges, only 10% are A-Grade
•    In case of Maharashtra State, out of 962 accredited colleges, only about 7.5 percent are in A Grade, 32% are in bottom C Grade. The ratio of Mediocre and moderate together will exceed 2/3 rd of colleges.
•    The scenario is worse in most of the other States

The quality in higher education is the product of 3Es  - Excellence, Efficiency and Equity. But the focus has been only on Equity by reserving seats for a few identified socially disadvantaged categories. There is no appropriate long term roadmap available for the remaining 2Es of Excellence and Efficiency.

6.    Globalisation and its impact on Indian Higher Education: Globalization has been described as ‘the flow of technology, economy, knowledge, people, values, ideas and affects each country in a different way due to individual nation’s history, tradition, culture, resources and priorities as multifaceted process with economic, social, political and cultural implications for higher education. The new developments in higher education includes:
1.    Increased supply of education and greater access for students. The emergence of new education providers such as multi-national companies, corporate universities and media companies
2.    New forms of delivering education including distance, virtual and new face-to-face, such as private companies
3.    Greater diversification of qualifications and certificate
4.    Increasing mobility of students, programs, providers and projects across national borders.
5.    More emphasis on lifelong learning which in turn increases the demand for postsecondary education
6.    The increasing amount of private investment in the provision of higher education
7.    Support for the knowledge economy
8.    Development of joint degrees, fusion or hybridization of cultures
9.    Growing comparability of qualifications
10 Increasing role for market-based approach
11 Economic benefits for education providers
12 Diversification and generation of new academic environments

These developments have important implications for higher education in terms of quality, access, diversity and funding.

In recent years, India’s rapid growth has fuelled a massive increase in the demand for higher education. The potential impact of globalization on higher education provides both opportunities and challenges. The opportunities include:
•    Increased supply of education and greater access for students
•    Support for the knowledge economy.
•    Development of joint degrees, fusion or hybridization of cultures
•    Growing comparability of qualifications
•    Increasing role for market-based approach
•    Economic benefits for education providers
•    Diversification and generation of new academic environments

7.    Research Scenario: The high quality research by Indian scholars is greatly affected these days. The reasons are varied. Research Activities in the Universities have come to a standstill. Both teachers and students have withdrawn from their involvement in research. The enrollment of students (per teacher) in research has been going down. Those, who are joining research, are not genuinely interested. Thus, on one hand, talented students with genuine interest in and motivation for research are not available, and on the other, a large majority of faculty is indifferent to research activities.
The first choice of every secondary school pass-out is to appear in the competitive tests for admission to high-profile institutions of technical and professional education such as IITs, IIMS and AIIMs. The second layer of students who do not succeed in securing admission to these institutions remain contended with other institutions of professional education such as NITs, Govt. Engineering and Medical Colleges, University Colleges of medicine and Engineering and other Private Professional institutions. This completes the first stage screening.

The lefties of first stage screening, join professional courses like MBA, MCA, CA and Teacher Education for which entry classification is graduation. The remainders have no other choice but to join postgraduate courses in Arts, Sciences and Commerce. It is from this lot, we have to look for good researchers after they complete their PG courses. This lot not only lack required ability to pursue research but also have low motivation and inclination for research work. Thus, our choices are limited and expectations are high. In such circumstances, how we can expect quality research. Research as an intellectual endeavor requires talented persons with high level of interest, aptitude and motivation for it.

Experience shows that not more than 20 per cent of all students enrolled in doctoral research complete their work and almost 80 per cent dropout. Recently, the UGC has started giving scholarship to the tune of Rs.5000 to all students enrolled for Ph.D. in central universities. During the last two years, millions of rupees have been distributed as scholarship in all central universities. Now the basic question is why the students of state universities are deprived of this benefit? Are they not doing research? Are the teachers not capable of supervising quality research? Are we not creating inequity through this kind of approach? Will a provision of scholarship for all enrolled students automatically generate ability, aptitude and interest for research? There has been massive enrollment of research students in all central universities during the last two years with most of them joining the program only for scholarship and not for research. The system of higher education in India, as it stands today, has nothing to offer to a faculty member doing good research work. There is no reward/incentive attached to a good research work. There is still time for UGC to rethink over the matter, analyze and amend the regulations in the interest of the quality research.

8.    Status of Granting Accreditation by Controlling Authorities: According to recent reports by NAAC (On their own website), out of 500 odd existing universities in the country, only 143 (about 26%) have been assessed accredited by the NAAC during the period of 15 years since its inception. Similarly, out of total 26,000 colleges, only 3500 (about 13%) have been assessed and accredited. The coverage of NAAC’s assessment (Nearly 45%) has been concentrated in four states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and U.P. With this pace, NAAC will take another 60 years to assess all the existing universities and 120 years to assess and accredit all currently functioning colleges in the country.

9.    Strengths of Universities:
    State Universities recognized by UGC
    University governed by the University Laws and Statutory bodies like Senate, Syndicate, Academic Council etc.
    Strong skeleton (infrastructure)
    Brand Equity (reputation)
    A pool of human resources (Knowledge Managers)


10.    Factors affecting higher education
The present scenario reflects serious weaknesses of our higher education system as follows:

•    Heavy dependability on the State Government for growth and survival
•    Leadership without vision, in particular at higher levels both in colleges and universities
•    Rigidity in the system
•    Poor Human Resource Planning
•    No creativity and innovation
•    Curricular reforms and pedagogic reforms are not coping with the rate of knowledge advancement
•    Lack of involvement of teachers and administrators in the system
•    Admission of undeserving students
•    Widespread indiscipline of teachers
•    Unconstructive groupism of teachers
•    Below standard teaching quality.
•    Absence of Performance Appraisal System for teachers
•    Obsolete Teaching Technology
•    Poor motivation and poor performance of teachers
•    Pessimistic attitude towards research among college teachers
•    Poor and corrupt evaluation system
•    Examinations are not conducted according to schedule
•    Delayed announcement of results hampering the career plans/schedules of the students
•    Political interference in the autonomy of higher education
•    Inadequate financial help to colleges and universities resulting in poor facilities to students and teachers
•    Conduct of examinations has become too costly and hazardous

11.    Suggestions to improve Higher Education: In order to streamline the problems affecting higher education, the Government of India has constituted three committees. These are Knowledge Commission, University Grants Commission and Yeshpal Committee. All the three reports given by three committees though contradict with one another; underline the need for revamping the whole higher education system. Their focus is on expansion, inclusion and excellence. This focus is due to the expanding market for more human resource, to include the underprivileged and hitherto excluded into the system and to achieve excellence in higher education. It is a process of competing with other countries in supplying quality manpower to the economy and to make profit through a knowledge economy.

Given below are some suggestions to improve the quality of higher education in the country:
 
    Enhancing the quality of teaching, learning and evaluation methods
    Encouraging innovations in teaching
    Focus on continuous development of faculty
    Making efforts to meet the increasing demand for quality higher education at low cost
    Focus on development of soft skills such as creative thinking, decision making, critical thinking and problem solving
    Networking of universities and colleges
    Emphasis on inter-university and inter-college exchange programs at the national and international level
    Concentrating on all the aspects of learning such as learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together
    Keeping records of alimonies by all the higher education institutions and establishing communication with them
    Admission to all university courses should be based strictly on merit
    Regular short duration refresher courses and quality improvement programs for teachers to keep them abreast with the latest developments in their respective fields
    Encouragement to teachers for undertaking research work
    Enriching universities and college laboratories with modern technology and equipments
    Establishing Centers of Excellence in selected areas. Such Centers to receive liberal financial support from the Government, UGC and similar other agencies for research work.
    Attempting to make the higher education system financially self-supporting
    Constant updating the programs and courses and review of syllabus. Curriculum need to be upgraded constantly and revised frequently.
    Reforming examination system. More emphasis on Internal Assessment. Internal Assessment System to include Extra-
curricular activities for all round growth of students
    Research work to improve teaching and developing synergy between teaching and research
    Better working conditions and incentives for talented faculty members
    Up gradation of Library and Laboratories
    The process of giving autonomy to colleges to be accelerated
    In order to monitor curricula and examination system, A Central Board of UG Education should be established along with State Boards.
    Higher Education should avoid a uniform ‘Ready-made’ Approach i.e. ‘One size fits all’ approach. Rather it should have ‘Tailor-Made’ Approach

12.    End Notes: The very function of higher education institutions is to produce skilled and capable manpower for productive activities in the economy and to create new knowledge. The higher education system plays an important role in improving the economy and reducing the social problems if the supply and demand matches. The poor quality of higher education is due to unregulated institutions and poor quality of human resource production which ultimately exploited the people and caused unemployment problem in the society. Expansion requires huge investment in the higher education sector for which the government did not have adequate resources. Hence the Government allowed the private players to come in.

In the process, two groups of private players entered. One group deliberately planned to stay on in this sector and make their institutions professionally competitive. It appears that their strategy is to put the service in business mode. The second group, purely a commercial venture developed to exploit the demand by quickest possible method, but having no long term interest. They are racketeers. This group does not have any ethics and their entry into the higher education system has destabilized the whole educational management system in India. The reason for inability of the new institution to produce quality manpower is basically due to the poor quality of the teachers. The newly created institutions, could not find quality staff from the market for the sudden expansion. It is because of the foul players that the higher education system has got mixed up and got into trouble. Now the question arises, how to classify the private as good or bad? It could be possible only by rating of private institutions. The existing regulatory authorities in the sudden expansion could not expand their activities. Resultantly, the regulatory authorities remained nominal heads only rather than becoming effective instruments for regulating the higher education institutions. The regulatory authorities have been corrupted. This is natural when sudden expansion takes place in any sector.

The issues bought out in this paper are multi-faceted, highly complex and are influenced by various interrelated forces. But these are not the standalone issues. Therefore, a detailed analysis of these issues should be carried out to derive a holistic approach in order to tackle the challenges that we are facing today.

13.    References:
1.    ‘Perspectives and Issues in Higher Education’ an article by Avadh Ram, Vice Chancellor, Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith, Varanasi
2.    ‘Higher Education in India: Where are we Leading’, an article by G. Palanithurai, Prof. & Head, Department of Pol Sci & Devt. Admn,m Gadhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram
3.    ‘Are we Heading towards World-Class Universities?’ an article by C.P.S. Chauhan, Professor of Education & Dean, Faculty of Social Science, Aligarh Muslim University, Alligarh
4.    ‘Reforms in Higher Education: An overview on the Agricultural Education in India’, an article by C.S.Chakrabarti, Vice Chancellor, West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, Kolkata.
5.    ‘Higher Education: Challenges and Issues’, Rameshwari Pandya, Associate Professor, Deptt. Of Extension and Communication, MS University of Baroda, Vadodara
6.    ‘Transformational Change in Indian Universities’ an article by Chandra B.P.Singh, Reader, University Department of Psychology, T.M. Bhagalpur University, Bhagalur
7.    ‘Quality Impediments in Higher Education’, an article by Mariamma A. Varghese, Former Vice Chancellor, SNDT Women’s University, Consultant, NAAC, Bangalore.
8.    ‘Quality of Higher Education: Impediments and Initiatives’  an article by M.R.Kurup, Secretary, Kelkar Education Trust & Founder Principal, V.G.Vaze College, Mumbai.
9.    ‘Qualitative Development in the Era of Globalization: A Challenge, an article by Dinesh Kumar, Lecturer, Baba Moniji Maharaj College of Education, Punjab
10      Developing Employability: A Task Ahead for Higher Educatgion Institutions, an article by Lekhan Gogoi, Lecturer, Department of Education,  Moridhai College, Assam.