Quality In Higher Education (Role Of Students)

“The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people”

In the twenty first century, the challenge faced by developing countries is to advance rapidly along the path of growth and, at the same time, to join the emerging knowledge based economy, and the global information society. In order to meet this challenge, India has to make its universities globally competitive. Universities can be globally competitive only if they are successful in delivering quality education at higher education level. Education can be said to be a Quality education only if it has the ability to satisfy the stated needs or implied needs of the people who are the stake holders (Parents, Employers, Society, Country) in the Education industry. Broadly speaking, there are five popular ways to frame the issue of quality in higher education (and most other settings), as follows: Quality as endurance: If an institution stands the test of time for more than a century, we might equate that endurance with quality. We might view an institution with only a few decades under its belt as a newcomer, and if it has only a few years to its name, some people may suspect its ability to deliver quality. Quality as luxury and prestige. Objects that are luxurious, beautiful, or prestigious are often associated with great quality. This view of quality is certainly seen in higher education, where institutions invest in beautiful garden-like campuses, stately buildings, luxurious suites in athletic stadiums, and every convenience that students from affluent backgrounds are accustomed to at home. Quality as luxury extends to providing the most up-to-date research facilities, light teaching loads for faculty, deep pockets to support sabbaticals, and investment in scholarships to attract the most promising new students and push up rankings that imply prestige.

 Quality as conformance to requirements. This approach reduces quality to a set of specified attributes or characteristics to achieve. Most approaches to accreditation are based on this framework. The accrediting body specifies a set of requirements that a college, university, or specific academic program is required to meet, and then reviews performance to see if there is conformance to the requirements. Educational institutions can establish requirements for learning outcomes, support services, financial well-being, library resources, and even for demonstrating effective planning, assessment, and improvement.

 Quality as continuous improvement. Although American and Japanese quality leaders accepted the need for conformance to requirements, they also broadened their framework by focusintg on the reduction of variation in repeatable processes that would lead to continuous improvement and encouraged innovation through applications of new technology. This concept has found its way into higher education as some believe that defined requirements can never keep pace with organizational learning and technology, so quality should mean achieving the fastest rate of innovation and improvement in all aspects of an institution. From this perspective, conformance to requirements means that an institution passes muster based on quality expectations that may already be out of date.



 Lecturer, Prestige Institute of Management and Research, Indore
Quality as value added. As service organizations began contemplating quality in the 1980s, a perspective emerged that a process, such as education, should add value to the consumer or society. In education this perspective suggests that students should know more after they complete an academic program than before they started. Completing a college degree should mean some measurable improvement in student learning, social skills, social contacts, writing skills, reading skills, critical thinking or other attributes that are consistent with the mission of an institution, such as the ability to dance, speak another language, or plan how to construct a building. Students, Faculty, Employers, Accreditation Agencies, Parents, Society all have some role to play in the achievement of Quality in higher education.

1.    Role of Student: Industry of Education is a Service Industry. Student is its primary consumer. In service Industry, the quality can be achieved only through the mutual efforts of the service provider and the consumer of the service. If any one among them is not ready to put efforts then the talk about quality will become futile because quality cannot be achieved with one sided efforts. If a patient goes to the best doctor but does not adhere to his prescription/instructions, his disease won’t be cured not because doctor is not good but because the patient was not willing to co- operate the doctor. The same thing follows in education industry. There are institutes who are ready to give every facility to the student so that their knowledge and skills can be developed but the students are reluctant to learn and hence all the efforts of the institute go futile.

At the time of taking admission the student should decide about his objective i.e his objective is to acquire degree or to acquire knowledge and develop skills. The objective with which the student studies makes a big difference in his learning. If a student studies mere to acquire degree he will never be able to take quality education irrespective of the best faculty, best resources, best assessment schemes, best curriculum. On the other hand if the student studies with the objective to acquire knowledge and develop skills he will be able to acquire quality education even out of limited resources.

If the student is dreaming of a good job with the  highest package, he should know that the institute can bring the best companies but cannot get him placed in those companies unless and until he has those set of qualities which those companies are looking for. Students should understand that education does not only mean passing exams with flying colors but it means acquiring the ability to think critically, take right decisions, ability to comprehend, ability to  articulate and last but not the least achieve mental robustness. If at the end of the day a student graduates from the institute with right knowledge, skill and attitude he will be said to have acquired quality education.

Quality in higher education cannot be achieved only through resources. Resources do not help in  reaching the destination , they just make the journey towards destination smooth. What is important is learning  attitude. A student with learning attitude only can take the benefit of the resources provided by the institute. So, the student should only concentrate on developing the  right attitude and should be ready to give his 100%. If universities have such students they they will be successful in delivering quality education.