Dr. D. Mukhopadhyay
Quality in higher education is the common denominator for measuring all round success under the environment of globalization. Quality education is the critical success factor in every socio-economic activity and more particularly in the process of bringing about rapid economic development of the country. Government of India earmarked 2022 as the target for joining the league of developed economies in the world and higher education is the main route for reaching the destination. Now question arises as to what is our degree of preparedness for achieving the set target so far. Higher education delivery system needs to be strengthened to a substantial extent since it equips the young people with knowledge and appropriate skills in order the make them competent to serve the different sectors of the national economy. Quality education has a big role in preparing responsible citizens of the country in order to protect the interest of ‘ People, Profit, & Planet’. People stands for social aspects, profit for economic aspects and planet stands for environmental aspects. Only quality in higher education can take of this 3 Ps. The genesis of development of higher education was the First Five Year Plan and since beginning Government of India was found to be serious with regard to expansion of education sector. At the time of Independence, there were only twenty Universities across the country and the same is more than seven hundred today which includes State Universities, Central Universities, Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, the Institute of Cost Accountants of India, the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, National Institute of Technology, Deemed Universities, Private Universities etc and all of them contribute to preparing and production of skilled manpower. But researchers have empirically found that this is not adequate to meet the requirements of India under the contemporary globalized environment and India is lagging far behind in providing quality education in comparison to the economically developed countries. Substantial portion of one hundred and twenty five crores population belong to the age group below thirty five in order to garner the benefit in the form of demographic dividend of this young work force, India needs to equip them with quality higher education and make them competent enough to meet the challenges of globalization. The initiatives for promotion of higher education in the country taken by Government of India was appreciable. In support of this argument, the first initiative taken by Government of India was to set up the University Education Commission in 1948 which was mandated ” to prepare report on Indian University education and suggest improvements and extension that may be desirable to suit present and future requirements of the country”.
The University Education Commission Report otherwise known as the Radhakrishnan Commission Report (1948-49) and Education Commission Report (1964-66) otherwise known as the Kothari Commission Report are the major constituents for framing national higher education policy which was a major reform in higher education in 1986. The 1986 Policy on higher education formulated five main goals of higher education and they are Access, Equity, Quality, Relevance and Value Based Education. There has been considerable improvement in enrolment scenario for higher education in the country. It is worth mentioning that Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in 2005-2006 was 11.5% and the same is 24.5% in 2015-2016. The GER for male population is 24.5% and the same for female population is 23.5%. The target GER was 25.2% by the end of the 12fth Plan and to take the same to 30% by the end of 2020 which may be achievable keeping in pace with the world average. This is as far as the higher education expansion issues are concerned but quality issues were not given due consideration. It may not sound irrelevant to state that appointment of faculty and teachers and development of requisite infrastructure simultaneously with expansion of number of higher educational institutions was not kept in view since inception.
According to MHRD, on an average, 25 % to 35% teaching posts are lying vacant in Central Universities, IITs, IIMs, NITs, IISERs etc. Thus quality in education delivery suffers most in absence of requisite number of qualified teachers in accordance with sanctioned strength. Many times, the issues concerning excellence in higher education and quality improvement came into limelight but nothing substantially happened so far. The 12ft Plan was committed for bringing about improvement in quality of higher education and necessary emphasis was laid on excellence and quality of higher education. Quality is a multi-dimensional phenomenon and total reformation and transformation of existing higher education delivery mechanism is called for in order to make it match for the need of globalization and globalized environment. Installation of quality assurance mechanism in effective sense is necessary. There are many Universities across the country where Internal Quality Assurance Cells (IQAC) are in place but they are not as active as they should be. Only in pen and paper IQACs remained active but not in real terms. Accreditation of higher education Institutions and individual program is badly needed to be accredited and the same should be mandatory. It is a matter of regret that accreditation of Universities and higher education institutions is still optional and therefore there is no quality management mechanism in place.
Improvement in teaching and research is the last word for sustainable higher education in globalized socio-economic environment. Capacity and skill development should get top most priority. There is need for modernization of library in terms of digital delivery mechanism besides traditional mode of functioning of the libraries. It is a challenge before the Universities and higher educational Institutions to retain the talented teachers under the competitive economic environment. Teachers in order to retain should be provided with congenial academic environment besides competitive compensation. A talented teacher needs good research facility and infrastructure and flexible time for teaching and administrative work.
In order to provide equal access to everybody, there is necessity for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds(SWAYAM). Spending in research activities is very insignificant in India. Research means progress, prosperity and prominence. Therefore, teachers must be given sufficient time and encouragement to devote more time in research and teaching than any other activities which can be done by some other skilled staff otherwise there shall misuse valuable resource. A teacher must be engaged in the process of cultivation of knowledge which can be used for strategy formulation under varied situations. Publication should a regular exercise in UGC Listed journals at least and target should be other reputed international journals. The Ph.D. Programmes should be quality driven and rather than quantity driven. Only the students attributed with knack for research should be encouraged to take admission in Ph.D. Programmes and quality need to be monitored keeping in view the international standard and practices. Only the competent teachers should be appointed as the research guide and supervisors and first priority should go to the senior level teachers. Junior level teachers should concentrate more on teaching and then research in order to develop capacity.
Indian higher education needs to be well connected with rest of the world in general and developed countries in particular in order to develop capacity and capability to meet the challenges of globalization and that is the order of the day. A paradigm shift is necessary in teaching and research delivery mechanism in order to make it globally competitive. It can be observed that India has given more attention to quantity than that of quality and since early 1990s this practice has been continuing and as result mainly engineering and management education are the worst sufferers from poor quality of the delivery mechanism.
(The author is Professor of Management at School of Business, Faculty of Management, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, Jammu & Kashmir)
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