Quality concerns in Technical Education in India. A quantifiable quality enabled model
| Published date | 01 February 2016 |
| Date | 01 February 2016 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/QAE-07-2011-0040 |
| Pages | 2-25 |
| Author | Victor Gambhir,N C Wadhwa,Sandeep Grover |
| Subject Matter | Education,Curriculum, instruction & assessment,Educational evaluation/assessment |
Quality concerns in Technical
Education in India
A quantiable quality enabled model
Victor Gambhir
Mechanical Engineering, Manav Rachna International University,
Faridabad, Haryana, India
N.C. Wadhwa
Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad, Haryana, India, and
Sandeep Grover
Mechanical Engineering, YMCA University of Science and Technology,
Faridabad, Haryana, India
Abstract
Purpose – The paper aims to discuss current Technical Education scenarios in India. It proposes
modelling the factors affecting quality in a technical institute and then applying a suitable technique for
assessment, comparison and ranking.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper chose graph theoretic approach for quantication of
quality-enabled model. Further, the paper has validated the approach by taking examples of institutions
and applying the methodology.
Findings – The paper provides a systematic methodology to build a quality model for quantication
of various factors in a technical institute. The qualitative effect represented in form of a single numerical
index is a novel method for such representations. The illustrated methodology in the paper is equally
useful for comparison and ranking of a set of institutes.
Research limitations/implications – Because of the chosen factors in the approach, the
methodology may not be equally suitable based on type and size of institute and the geographical
location.
Practical implications – The paper includes demonstration on application of methodology for
comparing the quality in a quantitative manner. The dynamic model allows changing factors and/or
their effects as per requirement.
Social implications – In future, the methodology can be taken up by government/regulatory bodies
and can convey the comparisons of institutions to stakeholders including students and parents.
Originality/value – This paper attempts to develop a novel method for comparing quality that can be
used by accreditation bodies.
Keywords Quality evaluation, Graph theoretic approach, Quality model, Technical institute
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The beginning of formal Technical Education in India can be dated back to the
mid-nineteenth century. The major policy initiatives in the pre-independence period
included the appointment of the Indian Universities Commission in 1902, the issue of the
Indian Education policy in 1904 and the Governor General’s policy statement of 1913
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
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QAE
24,1
2
Received 15 July 2011
Revised 24 January 2012
22 January 2013
26 December 2013
Accepted 4 September 2015
QualityAssurance in Education
Vol.24 No. 1, 2016
pp.2-25
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0968-4883
DOI 10.1108/QAE-07-2011-0040
stressing the importance of Technical Education, the establishment of Indian Institute
of Sciences (IISc) in Bangalore, Institution for Sugar, Textile and Leather Technology in
Kanpur and industrial schools in several provinces (AICTE Approval Book, 2011-2012).
The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), a regulatory body for
engineering and technological education, was formed by the Government of India in
1945.
In developing countries like India, the government has shown a keen interest in
improving the quality of higher education which may be a driving factor for rapid
industrial and economic growth in the country. Therefore, the eld of Technical
Education included qualied professionals, not only from engineering background but
also from various other elds such as business management, hotel management,
pharmacy, commerce, psychology and industrial sociology are included. The growth of
Technical Education in India before1947 was very slow because of the limited number of
technical institutes with limited intake capacity. (AICTE Approval Book, 2011-2012).
But now, every year, there are remarkable numbers of students entering either higher or
Technical Education institutions in the country. The rapid growth in the number of
institutions and students in the Technical Education system in India is summarized in
Table I (AICTE Approval Book, 2013-2014).
This phenomenal growth in Technical Education in the country has only been
possible due to the efforts and initiatives taken during successive ve-year plans and
particularly due to policy changes to allow participation of private and voluntary
organizations in the setting up of technical institutions on a self-funding basis (UGC
Golden Jublee Seminars, 2003). However, the signicant growth in Technical Education
has not yet translated into signicant growth in the number of quality graduates for a
variety of reasons.
Education services, unlike manufactured goods, are intangible and difcult to
display or inspect fully (DiDomenico and Bonnici, 1996), as the outcome is reected in
the transformation of individuals in their knowledge, their characteristics and their
behaviour. (Tsinidou et al., 2010). However, the quality of education in an institute can be
assessed in the opinions or feedback of its stakeholders, i.e. students, teachers,
employers, etc. Students are the real customers of the educational institutions and the
best measure of quality is customer’s satisfaction (Zeithamal, 1981;Athiyaman, 1997).
Rating of any technical institution can be assessed by its student’s performance at
national or global level, which reects the services provided by the institute to their
students.
Presently, there is a wide gap between the quality and quantity in Technical
Education in India. The quality of education and training being imparted in the
Table I.
Number of
institutions and
students in the
Technical Education
system in India
Year(s) Institution Students Year(s) Institution Students
1947-1948 38 2,570 2008-2009 2,388 8,41,018
1967-1968 137 25,000 2009-2010 2,972 10,71,896
1997-1998 547 1,47,900 2010-2011 3,222 13,14,594
2000-2001 838 2,53,460 2011-2012 3,393 14,85,894
2006-2007 1,511 5,50,986 2012-2013 5,854 17,61,976
2007-2008 1,668 6,53,290
3
Technical
Education in
India
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