ENSURING QUALITY IN INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

As part of our regular exercise, we have been bringing out brief notes called "Issue Notes". The aim of these Issue Notes is to enable Parliamentarians to understand various social and economic issues and enhance the quality of debates and interventions made at the Parliament.

Though quality is an important declared objective of India’s higher education policy it is not backed by necessary steps to engage requisite faculty and infrastructure and develop quality consciousness across the learning processes. The pursuit of quality is hampered by a lack of quality teachers, updated syllabi and adequately endowed libraries, laboratories, and computer terminals. Thus, Indian higher education is still considered to be sub-optimally organised and highly regulated, which limit initiatives for change and stifles private efforts.

This Issue Note addresses the question: how can the quality of higher education be ensured? Is it essential to de-link the accrediting agency? What remedial action should be taken if the quality of a higher educational institution is not found satisfactory and how can it be ensured that the design of higher education is in sync with market demand? Can updating the syllabi regularly according to the requirements of market help? It analyses and answers these vital questions for further debate and policy action.

This issue note can be accessed at: http://www.cuts-international.org/pdf/4-2008Ensuring_quality_in_indian_higher_education.pdf