1. Introduction:
There is a common saying which
says, “the king’s respect is limited to his own kingdom whereas a learned man
is respected everywhere” (Swadesh pujyate Raja, Vidvam Sarvatra Pujyata). That
is why in our country, from ancient times, education (Vidya) was considered to
be ‘the third eye’ of man, which not only gave him insight but also mental
strength and equilibrium of material and spiritual life. Various religious
scriptures and number of philosophical thought in India too have highlighted
the importance of education right from the early days of human civilization and
claimed that salvation is attained through obtaining the true knowledge.
In the modern age of civilization
Swami Vivekananda too is of the view that a national cannot progress without
proportionate growth in education of a persons. According to him a society
cannot be transformed into a strong nation with moral and cultural values only
through education of the society. In his own words, “Education, Education can
unlock all doors for a progress “A nation advances in proportion to education
and intelligence spread among masses” If India is to grow to her full potential
as a strong, united, prosperous nation, a nation attuned to the highest and
ethical moral values, true to the genius of her cultural and spiritual
heritage; it is possible only though transformation and regenerative power of
education only-a truly creative endeavor. It can help India to grow into her
full potential as a strong united nation with strong moral and cultural
values”.
Therefore knowledge has become
more powerful and essence of any developed society. It has strategic importance
for everyone because it facilitates in modifying and replacing the factors that
narrow the social development of any society. Knowledge thus is the foundation
and basis of growth and development of any society in the world. If we want to
play strategic role in world at large it is necessary however to view education
seriously from its generation, scientific, technical and the structures that
facilitate in increasing the capacities and capabilities on the one hand and
traditions and practices which hinders the process of growing into full potential.
We cannot thus afford to take a halfhearted gaze at education rather immediate
and socio, political and economic actions should be initiated to increase in
the ability of ‘how-to-do-it’
.
2. Era of Liberalization:
However the decision to a paradigm
shift may not be comfortable within the given environment of economic
liberalization, globalization and privatization that were introduced from the
year 1991 in India. In this context, globalization may be defined as the
interdependence and interconnectedness of the modern world through an increase
in the flow of goods, services, information and capital both human and
physical. In the words of Deepak Nayyar globalization is “simply as the
expansion of economic activities across political boundaries of the
nation. More important perhaps, it
refers to a process of increasing economic integration and growing economic
inter-dependence between countries in the world economy. It is associated not only with an increasing
cross border movement of goods, services, capital, technology, information and
people, but also with an organization of economic activities which straddles
national boundaries. This process is
driven by the lure of profit and threat of competition in the market”.
Russi
Mody in his article titled “Globalization Efforts with Accent in Export” views
globalization as a two-way thing. First,
Globalization envisages free competition, high productivity using state of the
art of technology and second, selling in one single market place of the whole world.
But Prof. C.T. Kurien views global economy, “as a collection of heterogeneous
units with different agendas inter-acting with one another in a variety of ways
and thus changing its character over time.”
Globalization and liberalization
as practiced and advocated world over has resulted in the perception of higher
education as commercial product, with dealings in it being governed by market
forces and principles of demand and supply. Though higher education exists to
serve the society yet actual developments in world over indicate that education
is treated as a commodity that could be traded beyond the national boundaries
in the form of service. The reality of liberalization in India has led to a
mushrooming of private institutes of higher education, offering multiple
vocational courses of suspicious quality. Some even offered degrees of foreign
Universities to the innocent customers.
This situation has brought about a situation on the one side where markets
forces moved by profit and quick profit alone, neglected the task of knowledge
generation through the promotion of basic sciences, and quality education.
But on the other side under GATS
regime India has to allow the opening of foreign university campuses on Indian
soil and admit Indian students to their courses. As a reciprocal measure,
Indian universities can also open their campuses on foreign soil and admit
their students too.
It will
result on the one hand, in increased privatization and on the other hand
enhanced competition among various institutions offering higher education
services to different category of people. In this situation only those
institutions offering higher quality educational service alone will be able to
sustain themselves in the competitive markets and those educational institutions
failed to offer quality education will go out of business in market terms.
Therefore, quality assurance in higher education is need of the hour with
opening up of the educational frontier.
3. Need for Quality:
What is quality? It may be
defined in terms of excellence, perfection, standards and value for money,
competencies for work, consistency and relevance. On the quality of education,
a policy perspective (1985) entitled ‘Challenges of Education’, it is said that
“a quality-conscious system could
produce people who have the attributes of functional and social relevance,
mental ability and physical dexterity, efficacy and reliability, and exercise
initiative and make innovation and experimentation with new situations. To
these personal attributes, on could add the dimension of a value system,
conducive to harmony, integration and the welfare of the weak and the
disadvantaged.”
Quality therefore defines the
goals and purposes of education. Quality impacts the content of higher
education, its processes, its output or product, as it seeks to develop human
resources with required skills, excellent in performance and capable of
delivering the goods as a unit of the work force. The quality of knowledge in a
society depends upon the quality of education it provides. Quality makes the
knowledge relevant in individual and social needs. Quality makes education
socially and individually relevant, but if the quality of education is not
assured then the education, which is advocated as a solution to social problems,
may itself become a problem. Quality education thus is required today, to
enable persons, societies and nations to acquire the skills and competencies
required for living meaningfully in a competitive, global world. The World
Conference on Higher Education (UNESCO 1998) had rightly stated that each
higher education institution should define its mission to provide access to
quality education the basis of human rights and democracy.
4. Steps to Sustain Quality:
Once we are convinced of the
importance and the role of knowledge or education can play in the development
of any society, society at large should attempt to answer the following
questions. How good do we want to be? Who is doing is best? How do they do it?
How can we adapt what they do in other countries? How can we be better than the
best? How well are we doing as compared to others?
To build a culture of excellence and full potential therefore all those
agencies involved directly or indirectly in higher education should
commit ourselves to a paradigm shift in favour of excellence through internal,
self-initiated, logically planned and morally rooted committed decisions.
Following are the steps suggested from the perspective of Management, Teachers,
Students and society at large for quality enhancement and substance in higher
education.
4.1. Effective Leadership:
Mahatma Gandhi once said, “We
must be the change we wish to see in the world.”
The development of quality
education first and foremost will depend upon the quality academic leadership
provided within an institution. It is the quality of leadership determines the
quality of an organization. Accordingly
the leadership therefore must create an environment, which encourages
performance of every one. Educational institutions should promote a
transformative leadership who is capable of translating intentions into actions
and actions into quality. Visionary leadership adopts and institutes an
effective ‘leadership system’ for an education organization. The visionary
leadership system means how a leadership is exercised, formally and informally,
throughout the organization and what are the basis for and the way the key
decisions are made, communicated and carried out. “It includes structure and
mechanisms for decision making, selection and development of senior leaders,
administrators, department heads and faculty leaders, and reinforcement of
values, directions and performance expectations.”
According to the Baldrige
Education Criteria for Performance Excellence in Higher Education, the leadership
system should perform the following:
- A visionary leader should “set directions and create
a student-focused, learning-oriented climate; set clear and visible
values; and high expectations;
- ensure the creation of strategies, systems and
methods for achieving excellence, stimulating innovation and building
knowledge and capabilities;
- inspire and motivate entire workforce and encourage
all faculty and staff to contribute, to develop and learn to be innovative
and to be creative;
- be responsible to all stakeholders for the ethics,
vision, actions and performance of education organizations;
- serve as role model through organization’s senior
leaders ethical behavior and their personal involvement in planning,
communications, coaching, development future leaders, review of
organizational performance, and faculty and staff recognition;
- build loyalties and teamwork based on the
organization’s values and the pursuit of shared goals;
- encourage and support initiative and appropriate risk
taking;
- avoid chains of command that require long decision
plans;
- respect the capabilities and requirements of faculty
and staff and other stakeholders;
- see high expectations for performance and
performances improvement.”
4.2. Developing a Quality
Culture:
There is a need to develop a
habitual quality culture in our institutions. This will require mental
infrastructure more than physical infrastructure, because quality depends upon
our sincerity to purpose, our vision and conviction to do our duties. In this
process the strong areas in the institution such as teaching, research or
innovation, etc., should be identified to boost further development. It should
become a motivation for further improvement. For this the necessary strategy
should be employed to put extra effort and resources, into areas needing
improvement and those having potential for growth. It means number of goals
need to be reorganized in the light of present and future challenges. Hence new
targets will have to be set up for the future and new work plans will have to
be drawn up keeping these targets in mind so that sustenance of quality could
be maintained to move with quality achievement.
4.3. Establishing Monitoring
Systems:
A system needs to be established
to monitor the activities, functioning and achievements of the institution in a
continuous manner. Monitoring should be a regular activity and based on
acceptance by all stakeholders namely Management, the Principal, the teachers,
the students, the non-academic staff and parents Indeed it should involve the
entire institution as one. It will be more effective if it has a participatory
nature wherein all are working towards quality assurance and sustenance
participation in monitoring the entire system.
4.4. Teaching Faculty:
It is said that the destiny of
India is dependent upon the talent, skills hard work, commitment, foresight,
patriotism, missionary zeal, quest for knowledge of the teachers. And “We the
Teachers of World” can shape the destiny of our country and the world.
No educational institution thus can maintain and sustain the quality if the
teaching faculty does not believe in the importance of quality in higher
education. Teachers should be convinced intensely within them that teaching is
not a profession or occupation rather a distinctive mission. Like William Lyon
(1970) every teacher should say that “In my mind, teaching is not merely a life
work, a profession, an occupation or a struggle, but a passion. I love to teach
as a painter loves to paint, as a musician loves to play, as a singer loves to sing,
and as a strong man rejoices to run a race”. Unfolding the same line of
thinking Rabindranath Tagore said, “A teacher cannot teach unless he is
teaching himself. A lamp cannot burn another lamp unless it continues itself to
burn.” One has to acknowledge about the fact that teacher’s role is highly
sophisticated professional mission which requires adequate know-how with regard
to all programmes of social engineering. It is imperative therefore the
teachers have to play a vital, active and decisive role in fostering universal
education and promoting and developing the values and vision in the society.
4.4.1. Accountability:
This requires accountability
among teachers. What is accountability in the educational institutions? In very
ordinary terms, “it means being punctual, taking all lectures and tutorials,
teaching well, reading the latest books and journals, sharing knowledge freely,
kindling the interest of the students in the subject completing the portion on
time, helping students to learn, evaluating student answer scripts fairly and
returning them on time. Accountability also means being approachable and
helpful to one’s stakeholders. It does not prevent one from being firm with
then when required.”
Accountability also means
willingness to accept moral obligations and continually strive to improve the
quality of the educational situation in the institution. One cannot expect the
government to enforce accountability from the teachers rather it must be based
on a system that confronts teachers more directly with their successes and
failures. In other words, quality assurance can come through teaches who are
willing to accept their responsibility to their students, to their institution,
to society and to their mission. This will require dedicated staff, committed
to quality assurance. For this teachers in higher education institutions must
come from the best brains in the society. Only teachers with high intellectual
capacities, self-confidence and good communication skills alone should be taken
to ensure quality.
These teachers should be exposed to emerging frontiers of knowledge so that
they can update their teaching abilities and skills.
This is not possible with
half-baked teachers who are available in maintaining and sustaining the
educational system because they are not capable of obtaining any other
profession in their life.
Sadly, now-a-days very few best brains are eager to seriously choose teaching
profession voluntarily. Moreover, truly qualified teachers with human qualities
are seldom recruited and the existing ones are not trained properly to perform
the jobs of generating knowledge to benefit the society. This has resulted in a
bad social environment where the teacher-student integral relation has
vanished. Over and above these teachers failed to cultivate in students the
quality of aspiration thereby raising the human soul from a selfish state of
consciousness to higher states. The teachers have failed to live as living
examples in their external behaviour, inner integrity, character and mastery of
knowledge.
4.4.2. Training:
In this given situation it is not
possible to achieve quality higher education without sufficient training
process. In no other profession today, are professionals expected to perform
without training. In no profession a professional is demanded without having
sufficient professionalism. But in higher education most teaches simply go
through their profession without any training in teaching-learning-evaluation
techniques. This may not be the case with primary and secondary education in
India. But in higher education teachers are called to render high level of
quality output in education without proper training. As a result they are
unable to give their best in the classroom. Therefore according to Viney Kirpal
“a rigorous, highly practical three or four week training for every teacher
would generate tremendous confidence in them, especially the beginner, and make
them more effective in contributing to the quality of education… This training
should focus on subject-specific training as well as technique and the use of
audio-visual aids, the latest learner-centric teaching methods facility in the
use of English, training in etiquette, good grooming and social behavior since
our students have begun to expect it of us teachers.”
He also advocates to step up
partnership with retired teaches of the educational institutions of higher
learning and with the educationalist and industrialist parents of the students.
In his words “retired teachers renowned for their teaching can be actively
involved as volunteers in sharing best teaching practices with their younger
colleagues and mentoring them into excellence. Parents are another very rich
volunteer resource to be involved in sharing practical, industrial knowledge or
knowledge of behavioural skills to students on a regular basis.”
Over and above there should be Collaboration with institutions of acknowledged
repute known for the rigour of curricula and other academic strategies. This in
normal situation often enhances the quality of the teachers of an institution.
Teaches in their pursuit to
quality higher education should not forget basics of student teacher
relationship. In their attempt to provide quality education students in general
should feel a sense of confidence in their teachers. There must exist, a subtle
fear of authority to stop such discussions from degenerating into indiscipline.
In this sense the teacher becomes a counsellor, guide and a friend. Dr.
Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan thus said, “Help the students to think rightly, make
them feel nobly, let them do rightly, above all let them posses the spirit of
compassion, universal love and brotherhood so that we can life together in a
global village as brothers and sisters”.
4.5. Students:
Steps to quality enhancement in
higher education, student’s commitment and their outlook towards higher
education play an important role in determining the quality of education
provided in our country. And in any system of higher education, students are
the primary stakeholders and they have right to receive quality education. Any
educational experiment is meaningless without proper participation and quality
improvement of students. Therefore it is said that the best way to measure
quality education provided by us is the performance of students in the process
of learning and after learning. Now let us see various steps should be
undertaken so that students may be helped to attain quality education.
4.5.1. Process of Learning:
Effective learning involves
actually doing the activity that in turn, aids knowledge acquisition and
understating. All learning has five levels – An increase in knowledge,
Memorizing, Acquisition of procedures, Abstraction of meaning, and
Understanding. When the teaching and learning outcomes focus on the first three
levels, it is called a surface approach to learning. When they focus on the
last two levels, it is called a deep approach to learning.
In a recent report brought out by
International Commission on Education for Twenty
First Century titled: “Learning:
the Treasure Within”, the Commission has identified four pillars of learning,
learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to
be.
So the learning may be defined as an element that raise and transforms the
consciousness of a person while leading him from darkness to light or
enlightenment. This process of learning may be facilitated according M.C. Paul
by “instilling the following capabilities in an efficient, effective and
excellent manner:
- to think logically, analytically, critically and
laterally;
- to make a healthy and honorable living, employing
learning/occupational skills and work experience;
- to realize one’s potential for self-development in
terms of physical, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic and moral attainment
through education and experience; and
- to acquire a discriminatory capability to appreciate,
imbibe and balance emerging values concerning areas of sustainability,
ecosystems, development with equity and civility, harmony and cultural
pluralism.”
Speaking about the process of
learning a Tamil grammer of the 14
th Century compares a good student
with a cow. The cow as it comes across a rich pasture never misses the
opportunity to graze as much as possible and then at leisure time it starts
chewing the cud. Likewise, the superior kind of student never fails to spot the
opportunity of gathering as much information and knowledge as they can from the
learning sources and then assimilates everything that they have learned. One
important difference between our conventional education and learning centred
education is that in the latter the learners learn what they would like to
learn and not what the teacher wants them to learn.
Therefore the students learn better as they are learning what they desire.
In this cow method of learning
according to S. Muthukumaran “the learner is taught what to learn and how to
learn, he becomes a lifelong learner. A person who is helped to climb a coconut
tree will require someone to help him climb another coconut tree. But a person
who is taught how to climb a tree will climb any tree anytime without
assistance from others. Therefore a learner who underwent learner oriented
education is fully equipped to face newer challenges; hence he is likely to
highly successful in his life.”
Learning
process being the central activity of any educational institute the same old
syllabi and teaching methods must be replaced by new updated items of teaching
and learner centered methods of teaching such as group work, role play, project
work, field visit, case study, debates etc., to supplement classroom teaching
so that students could translate this knowledge into practical implications.
4.5.2. Education for Employability:
As a result of quantitative
expansion in higher education Institutions, the educational institutions in
India generating number of students every year. However, the economic situation
of our country is not in a position to generation employment opportunities to
absorb the graduates passing out from the educational institutions. This is
leading to increase in educated unemployed and underemployment. Therefore a
multi-pronged strategy is needed to make education more attractive and
simultaneously create employment potential.
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam has proposed
steps to meet this challenge. “Firstly, the educational system should highlight
the importance of entrepreneurship and prepare the students to get oriented
towards setting up of the enterprises… The youth should be imparted the spirit
and confidence that “We Can do it”. Secondly, the banking system should provide
venture capital right from every village level to the prospective
entrepreneurs… Thirdly, the capacity to identify marketable products and
methods of enhancement of purchase poser among the people has to be built as
part of education.”
The renaissance rigour of
pursuing knowledge for its own sake has come to stay for the time being as a
goal of the academia. In the post liberalized period education for job and
knowledge for utility is a criterion with which the quality of education is assessed
across the globe. With the advancement of modern technology and market economy
the need for mobilizing an enlightened work-force has become more important
especially in commercial, managerial and technical activities in many
countries. Accordingly, academic activity in these areas is governed by the
criterion of employability. After assessing this trend long before Swami
Vivekananda said, “Education is not the amount of information that is put in
your mind and runs riot there undigested all you life. The use of higher
education is to find out how to solve the problems of life”
NAAC, Best
Practices in Higher Education – Report of the National Conference organized by
National Assessment and Accreditation Council, Goa, 26th & 27th
July 2004, p.37-38; Nyaya, philosophical thought is based on the premise that
salvation is attained through knowing the true knowledge.
As quoted by Sinha, S.N.P., Education must be
life Building, University News, Vol. 43, No.13.
Paul, M.C., Higher Education in India and the
Need of Quality Assurance Mechanisms for Developing a Knowledge Society, University
New, Vol. 43, No. 21.
Khanna, Pratibal, Changing Scenario of Higher Education
Challenges to Quality Assurance and Sustenance, University News, Vol. 43, No.7.
Kirpal, Viney, Quality in Higher Education: a right
of the Stakeholder; University News, Vol 43, No.38.
Mahadevappa, B., The Baldrige Education Criteria for
Performance Excellence in Higher Education, University News, Vol. 43, No.16.
Bolashetty, Shripad. S, Trade in Indian Higher Education Service
Sector: Implications of WTO’s GATS, University News, Vol 43, No.38.
Gupta, M. Sen, Teacher-Student Relationship at the
University Level, Vol. 43, No. 26.
Thayagarajan, S.P., Harnessing Science and Technology
for Economic and Social Development, University News, p. 19-21.
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