A comparative assessment of the performance of select higher education institutes in India
| Published date | 04 April 2016 |
| Date | 04 April 2016 |
| Pages | 278-302 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/QAE-02-2015-0006 |
| Author | Sangeeta Sahney,Jitesh Thakkar |
| Subject Matter | Education,Curriculum, instruction & assessment,Educational evaluation/assessment |
A comparative assessment of the
performance of select higher
education institutes in India
Sangeeta Sahney
Vinod Gupta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology,
Kharagpur, India, and
Jitesh Thakkar
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of select technical higher
education institutes of national importance in India. This helps to judge the efciency and effectiveness
of an institute to provide valuable insights on performance measurement and effectiveness not only to
the respective institute but also to governmental agencies and policymakers.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper makes a comparative analysis across various
educational institutes of repute. This paper looks at the performance of four technical higher education
institutes of India. An integrated data envelopment analysis–analytic hierarchy processing (DEA–
AHP) approach has been used to compare and evaluate the relative efciencies in terms of input
provided to the institute to produce outputs.
Findings – The results depict the performances of the four institutes over the period of ve years and,
in turn, help assess the increase or decrease in the performance of a particular institute in comparative
assessment. The paper also helps identify the most efcient institute among the four institutes that have
been compared, in terms of academic efciency, research efciency, teaching efciency and consulting
efciency.
Practical implications – A study like this would furnish an insight into the performance of the select
higher educational institutes. The ndings can be useful for policymakers, educational planners and
administrators in designing a system based on various criteria that can help improve the overall
efciency and decide about benchmarking and funding strategies.
Originality/value – This paper is an attempt toward dening, conceptualizing and measuring
performance effectiveness of institutes of higher education in the Indian context. The effort at the
integration of the methodologies (through comparison and DEA–AHP) has helped to provide insights
that could not have been obtained through the use of the methods or techniques alone. The paper has
helped identify critical strategic issues and parameters which when implemented would be useful for
policymakers, educational planners and administrators in designing a system based on various criteria
that can help improve the overall efciency of educational institutes in higher education.
Keywords Performance indicators, DEA–AHP approach, Quality in higher education
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The concept of quality became a well-established topic, and the concept of quality
assurance and quality enhancement are widely used in the higher education institutions
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
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QAE
24,2
278
Received 10 February 2015
Revised 17 June 2015
24 October 2015
Accepted 16 November 2015
QualityAssurance in Education
Vol.24 No. 2, 2016
pp.278-302
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0968-4883
DOI 10.1108/QAE-02-2015-0006
(HEIs) (Elassy, 2015). Reports on ination in India and worldwide indicate that the cost
of higher education is exponentially increasing, and it has become a critical concern for
the nation. As with other sectors of our economy, globalization continues to have
far-reaching effects on higher education. This has led to a paradigm shift in the increase
of the number of public and private educational universities and institutes. On the one
hand, the change in education scenario is related to protability and competitiveness,
and on the other hand, it demands for accountability and transparency. The critical
factors that decide the competitiveness of higher education include: cost, student debt,
changing demographics, skill level of graduates and technology.
The availability of information technology (IT) platforms and sources like the
massive open online course and other online educational courses have transformed the
educational services in global scenario. This has greatly expanded the university’s
reach by removing the need for geographic proximity. The real challenge is to expand
capacities in higher education to keep ahead of the curve of rising domestic and global
demand. There has been a reduction in entry barriers in education so far as foreign
players are concerned. Further, by allowing international educational institutes to set
foot into India, and entering into collaborations with them, the number of institutes in
the country has increased. Today, educational institutes face huge competition for both
nancial assistance and grant on the one hand and students on the other. As the
numbers of institutes have increased but the ends and means are still the same, they
need to grab the resources or to get public funding on a very large scale. To get the public
funding and resources, the institutes have to perform well in terms of quality.
Further, in their efforts to surpass their competitors, educational institutes have
made rigorous attempts to secure rankings, as well as accreditation from various
agencies. Brilliant and hard-working students, well-qualied and experienced faculty,
efcient administrative staff and infrastructure and basic amenities contribute to such
rankings and accreditation. By evaluating and comparing the performance of the higher
educational institutes, an insight into their effectiveness can be obtained. The
development of indicators is one way of addressing these concerns. The purpose of
performance indicators as stated in literature are to help:
• provide more accurate information on the performance of higher education
institutes;
• make comparisons between individual institutions;
• enable institutions to benchmark their performances; and
• contribute toward public accountability of higher education.
Chahal and Devi (2015) addresses service failure issues with respect to teaching,
examination, library, computer lab, administration and infrastructure using
quantitative methodology in higher education and role of service recovery strategies in
monitoring and reducing service failure. There are various key performance indicators
(KPIs) which should be taken care of by each and every institute and university to make
the teaching and learning process a success. Some of these could be teacher–student
ratio, staff–student ratio, infrastructural development, more interactive teacher–student
interactions, personality development sessions and cultural programs from time to time.
The various KPIs have been categorized in several ways in the literature on the basis of
the objectives of the higher education institutes. Some of them are social indicators,
279
Higher
education
institutes in
India
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