
AsianScientist (May 21, 2014) – How good (or bad) is the quality of education on offer at India’s 700 odd universities and 48,000 colleges and institutes?
No one can tell for sure.
Doing some guesswork
According to A. N. Rai, Director, National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), India, “while there is no doubt that a lot needs to be done in improving the quality of our institutions, things could be even worse.”
Mr. Rai is not in a position to say anything specific because NAAC has graded only about 20 per cent or so of the higher education institutions in the country.
Not one Indian university ranks among the top 200 institutions in the world. A few are placed among the top 100 institutions in Asia and among the BRICS nations. In all, maybe 10-15 institutions figure in any kind of global rankings.
Still, one can make a reasonably good guess about the overall quality of higher education from the low employability rates of graduates. There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that there is plenty that is wrong or plain missing in India’s higher education.
What explains the information deficit?
For a country with the third largest higher education sector in the world after the US and China, there ought to be more complete and accurate information for prospective students and other interested parties. How is it possible that there is so little reliable data on the quality of education on offer at a majority of India’s colleges and universities?
While the government created NAAC in 1996 in order to assess and grade higher education institutions, it has not made it obligatory for colleges and universities to get accredited. Most institutions, therefore, never bothered to approach NAAC at all. Some may have worried that they would be exposed as poor quality institutions. Others may have perceived or found the accreditation process to be too cumbersome. As a result, NAAC has collected credible information on less than 25 percent of colleges and universities in the country.
Last year, the government finally took the decision of making accreditation mandatory for all public colleges and universities. Unaccredited institutions, and those whose accreditation had expired (institutions must seek fresh accreditation every five years), started to line up at NAAC’s gates. They have been doing so because a new initiative by the government, the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA, National Higher Education Mission), requires public institutions to be NAAC-accredited in order to be eligible for government funding.
Still, with only one organization handling the task of accrediting thousands of colleges and universities, it will take quite a long time before all higher education institutions are graded, most for the very first time. Typically, a fairly large number of applicant institutions are asked to resubmit their initial applications. Peer teams are sent to the institution for inspection and grading once NAAC deems the initial application to be complete and satisfactory. Overall, the entire process is known to take up to several months or even one to two years per institution.
Bringing in private accreditation agencies is not enough
Senior officials at the University Grants Commission (UGC), the apex higher education regulator, acknowledge that it is not possible for a single government body to accredit all institutions in a timely and comprehensive manner. According to Ved Prakash, the UGC Chairman, “one body accrediting over 35,000 colleges is not a good situation.” Therefore, he wants the UGC to become “a licensing agency or give franchise to capable players to do the job.”
However, even if NAAC (and other organizations which are expected to take up the task of accreditation in the coming years) grade all colleges and universities, it will still be difficult to pass judgment on the overall quality of higher education. This is because accreditation is not mandatory private colleges and universities.
R Govinda, the vice-chancellor of National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi, has proposed that NAAC “grading should be made compulsory” for all institutions to be legally recognized as higher education institutions.
More than 60 percent of students are enrolled at private institutions, nearly all of whom offer degrees in engineering, management and other ‘professional’ disciplines. Private institutions are more expensive than public institutions but most are still sub-standard. Over the years, there have been numerous instances where they have been found to violate all sorts of rules and regulations. These include enrolling students even before the institution came into existence; admitting students without minimum qualifications; and taking in more than the approved number of students.
With a growing number of students headed to private institutions because public institutions are in a bad shape or not expanding fast enough to absorb the country’s growing college-age population; it is all the more necessary that the government requires all higher education institutions to get accredited.
There is also no doubt that bringing in private organizations for the task of accreditation is absolutely necessary. Already, the first such private organization has been created – the Indian Centre for Assessment and Accreditation (ICAA).
Nonetheless, whether NAAC, ICAA or other private organizations are entrusted with the task of accreditation, their credibility will remain a problem area. NAAC, for example, currently functions under the UGC. Government officials have indicated that they intend to make NAAC fully autonomous.
Under current ‘Indian conditions’, private regulatory agencies are equally likely to be prone to wrongful doings as public agencies. After the government hands over accreditation responsibilities to private organizations, there are no guarantees that they will do their job properly. Bringing in private organizations to carry out the task of accreditation may speed up the process but is likely to lead to a replication of the same problems as public accreditation agencies.
The challenge ahead
India’s higher education sector is in desperate need for a reasonably accurate portrayal of its colleges and universities. It is only when the government and other stakeholders have the necessary information about the quality of education at the thousands of colleges and universities across the country that they can take required corrective measures. However, the Indian government has to figure out ways in which educational institutions can be graded in a reliable manner. Until then, there will remain severe information deficits regarding the quality of higher education in the country.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine. Photo: Aleksandr Zykov/Flickr/CC.
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