Effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards in[/b]
Technical Education in India with TQM
[email protected]
In India, Technical education is imparted at different levels- certificate, diploma, degree, post graduate diploma, post graduate degree, research, post doctoral research etc. Technical education plays an important role in the overall development of a nation and so has been its role in our country too. Our Technical education system has world’s second largest population in engineering education. The number of degree institutes and polytechnics are increasing like a mushroom. The quality of technocrats that this system is producing, is a constant worry. NCERT frames the concept of quality as “the urge to reform within the system” and stipulates that, “quality is the measure of the extent to which the goals of the system have been articulated.” This definition would include different characteristics of the system that serve the goals of education, including quality of teachers, curricula, milieu, which affect how well a child learns. ISO 9000 standards are rapidly being implemented in many service industries such as educational institutions, banking sectors and postal services etc. These standards are gaining popularity in educational institutions in particular. Absence of any quality standard specific to education sector has given a scope to implement ISO 9000 quality standards in educational institutions.
This is an attempt to explore the practice of ISO 9000 standards in Indian educational institutions. This study explores the motives of implementing ISO 9000 standards, problems faced during implementation and benefits after implementation of this standard in educational institutes of India. This is an attempt to study the present status of engineering education system in India and the success of the mechanisms to assure the quality of the graduating students. The clues are drawn from TQM to develop a conceptual model for excellence in engineering education and ISO 9001:2000 as a quality assurance system. This paper presents the detailed survey carried out to find out the contribution of ISO 9000 standards in Indian educational institutions. This paper reveals the motives of implementing ISO 9000 standards in educational institutions and its benefits to organisation.
The possible adoption of commercially-based approaches such as TQM in a public sector like education can be useful to revitalize the engineering education systems. In order to maximize the satisfaction of internal and external products, which includes students, employees, industries, government and society at large, the system dynamics and the interlinking of quality related factors, should be addressed while designing a quality management system. The conceptual TQM model has been developed keeping in mind the diversified interest. If implemented effectively and using quality assurance systems like ISO 9001:2000, the TQM excellence model should lead to Quality of graduates; Quality manpower; Improved quality of intake; Quality of research; Research papers; Grants and Funding; Improved Financial power; Reputation; Brand Equity; Products and processes; Patents; Books; MoUs; International / National Conferences; Short term courses; QIP; Scholarships; Credibility; Professional society activities; and Role Model. It will move us forward to have economy to that of economy of developed nations such as USA, UK, France, Germany and Japan.
If we consider the correlation developed earlier for engineers per million population withGDP the number of engineering graduates are 3.3 lakhs in 2012 and 5.3 lakhs in 2017.We develop a stabilization scenario with an increased emphasis on quality. The focus should not just be on the numbers of technical degrees, but also on the quality. The norms could include proven excellence in academic programmes, faculty quality and research output, and potential for growth. Selected institutions should be provided special funds and support to enable a successful upgrade.
The present study on Indian engineering and technical education reveals that the leading institutions have adopted standard competitive research and object-oriented engineering study programmes. Some of the programmes are innovative in nature and offer tremendous advantages and benefits to students, universities and industries. The main benefits to the students can be summarised as: gaining confidence in decision making, relating theory with practice, increased job opportunities, realisation of responsibility, opportunities to know one’s weaknesses and strengths, and opportunities to work with modern equipment and on problems of current importance.
ISO 9000 standards in education
Education itself is a multi-million dollar industry and is very important for country’s development. Education is vital for society and no one can ignore its role and contribution. Quality assurance in education is a multifaceted problem. The quality of an educational institute is expected to be perfect by various stakeholders such as parents, students, industry and society. Student and their parents are rightfully questioning the quality of curriculum, instructional delivery, the learning environment and improvement of knowledge. The competitive environment demands students to have in depth and
practical knowledge, understanding of their specific area along with interpersonal and communication skills. As a society we want that institution must ensure quality of education to provide able professionals for continuous growth and development.
ISO benefits are segregated into four different parts as benefits to system, faculty, students and external benefits to organisation. The survey reveals that the most important motive of the institutions is documentation of the systems of the institute. The encouraging factor is that institutions are being benefited from ISO 9000 certification.
Since technical education determines the development and socio-economic condition of a nation, there is a greater need for high quality technical education to produce technically skilled manpower in India. A high quality engineer or technician can obviously be created only through high quality engineering and vocational teaching and training.
Technical education is imparted at three different levels in India:
· Industrial Training Institutes (ITI), which conduct trade courses for skilled workers.
· Polytechnic Institutes, which conduct diplomas to produce middle level technicians.
· Engineering Colleges, which conduct undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in engineering and technology.
There are engineering institutes and colleges that are supported by the state and central governments, and also a large number of private engineering colleges and institutes that provide technical education in India. The number of private institutions is increasing rapidly. Government expenditure in technical education has increased by almost 400 times from the first five year plan to the eighth. Some of the industrially developed states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh have experienced phenomenal growth both in numbers of students and engineering and technical institutions over the last two decades.
Finally, it can be concluded that other universities and institutions should adopt more job and object-oriented engineering education curricula linked with industries and research organisations to meet the present and future challenges of rapid technological changes and industrial development in India.This Paper reviews the present status of the engineering education in India and analyses the quality assurance systems to address the quality related problems. The TQM approach has been suggested to achieve “Quality Engineering Education” whereas ISO 9001 will be the Quality Assurance Mechanism.
Some of the industrially developed states, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh , have experienced phenomenal growth both in numbers of students and engineering and technical institutions over the last two decades. There are engineering institutes and colleges that are supported by the state and central governments, and also a large number of private engineering colleges and institutes that provide technical education in India. The number of private institutions is increasing rapidly. The AICTE non-approved institutes are apart from this. Some polytechnics are also running in double shifts. Government expenditure in technical education has increased by almost 400 times from the first five year plan.
Before discussing the issue of improving quality of engineering education, it is appropriate to discuss the effectiveness of present engineering education. Education is not just about enrolment numbers. What is the quality of education provided by the present engineering institutions? While there are excellent institutions that have been established over the years like IITs, RECs, NITs, the concern is about the large number of institutions that have mushroomed in the last decade or so. The following note is an eye opener….. “
Industry has not been happy with the quality of engineering graduates, more than 80 per cent of whom are from private colleges. The NASSCOM-McKinsey Report of 2005 found that only 25 per cent of Indian engineers were employable in the offshore IT industry.
Resource constraints, low efficiency of utilization of existing resources and lack of mechanism for sharing physical and human resources of sister institutions have led to large scale obsolescence of physical resources, deterioration of quality of teaching/learning processes and lowering of competence of teachers. Low internal efficiency of most institutions due to large drop outs and failure rates.
Rapid obsolescence of curricula and course contents due to infrequent revision and much delayed response to technological advances and consequent market demands.
Failure to attract and retain high quality faculty due to archaic recruitment and promotion procedures, absence of incentives for quality performance, and nonexistent staff development policies in most institutions.
The quality of education and training being imparted in the technical education institutions varies from excellent to poor, with some institutions comparing favorably with the best in the world and others suffering from different degrees of faculty shortages; infrastructure deficiencies; curricula obsolescence; lack of autonomy in academic, financial, administrative, and managerial matters; poor involvement in knowledge creation and dissemination, and poor interaction with community and economy.
Create new Engineering colleges through Public-Private Partnerships – The present model for private engineering colleges is unlikely to build long-term quality engineering institutions. The revenues from fees are capped and are the main income. Salaries account for about 80% of the total budget. There is very little operational flexibility for the college principal or Director to take new initiatives. Alternative funding models need to be explored.
A possible model is the creation of a corpus by a private company/ group of companies, commitment by the state/ central government towards grant in aid (based on the number of students joining in the open seats), commitment by the private promoter to provide funds required to compensate any annual budget deficit. The private promoter can be permitted to obtain returns from the annual surplus (based on the contributions made to the corpus). Alternately incentives could be provided in terms of tax savings, deductions for contributions to the corpus In addition to this, the sponsors may be allowed a choice of government council members (from an approved master list of professionals, experts and educationalists) and may be provided priority in campus interviews. .The quality system was originally created for manufacturing industry. Now service industry is also making lots of effort to improve their service quality. These ISO 9000 international quality standards are being implemented in many service organisations such as educational institutions, banking services, postal services, etc. Globalisation of market, heightened quality requirements through tough competition and mushrooming of educational institutes have lead to the quality thrusts nationally and internationally. Educational institutes are pressurised to be more efficient, work better with less funding, meet the needs of market and engage in long lasting quality improvement efforts. Absence of any grading system or a specific quality standard of educational institutes in India has given a scope to implement ISO 9000 in educational institutions. As a consequence of quality movement in industry, educational institutions are inspired to go for some sort of quality management system in order to gain competitive advantage and to promote a strategic development of educational institutes. A variety of educational institution in USA, Canada, Singapore, UK and Australia has started to implement ISO 9000 (Zuckerman and Rhodes, 2000).Many vocational educational institutes have thrust to the quality management system of ISO 9000 in order to establish consistency and control over the quality of such education. Nair and Gonzales (2004) investigated the strengths and weakness of ISO 9000 quality management systems in vocational education. ISO 9000 is a set of quality standards that assist an organisation to identify, correct and prevent error, and promote continual improvement. Educational institutions are implementing ISO 9000, as they have to face stiff global competition. ISO 9000 standards were revised in 1994 and then 2000. The latest standard of ISO 9001:2000 is designed to meet the needs of service sector including education sector.
The Indian technology education system is growing rapidly and is subjected fast radical changes since its inception. But, it is now facing major threats which also create ample opportunities and room for qualitative improvements. The foreign universities are creates also stepping in with the proven model of engineering education. To achieve the Mission 2020, we need engineers who will contribute to society through productive and satisfying engineering careers as innovators, decision-makers and leaders in the global economy of the twenty first century. To realize this, the education system need to be strengthened which will be capable of honing the students to attain all-rounded multi-faceted personality; to acquire leadership qualities, to sharpen communication and interpersonal skills, to acquire knowledge of the latest trends in technology, to have exposure to industrial climate and to gain confidence to face challenges in the highly competitive and ever-changing industrial world. The regulatory and accreditation bodies should be autonomous in true sense as suggested by FICCI and National Knowledge Commission. The faculty shortages; infrastructure deficiencies; curricula obsolescence; lack of autonomy in academic, financial, administrative, and managerial matters; poor involvement in knowledge creation and dissemination, and poor interaction with community and economy need to be addressed. There should be deliberate attempts to attract and retain the qualified staff and faculty. To develop existing employees, the formulated promotion procedures, incentives for quality performance, and staff development policies should be developed and implemented effectively.
The recent change has decreased the number of available quality system models from three to only one, and major requirements from twenty to following four:
1 Management Responsibility
2 Resource Management
3 Product Realisation
4 Measurement Analysis and Improvement.
These changes represent a more user friendly standard for educational institutions. Elmuti (1996) stated that the ISO 9000 improves operational efficiency and communication within the organisation. It provides uniform products with competitive edge and hence results in greater customer loyalty and market share. This paper is an attempt to explore the practice of ISO 9000 standards in Indian educational institutions. This study explores the motives of implementing ISO 9000 standards, problems faced during implementation and benefits after implementation of this standard in educational institutes of India.
The scope of application ranges from relatively small laboratories to whole institute. Education is the key to the resurgence of India.Since technical education determines the development and socio-economic condition of a nation, there is a greater need for high quality technical education to produce technically skilled manpower in India.
The main purpose of ISO 9000 in education is to provide confidence to the
professionals, students and their parents, employees and various other stakeholders.There are only a limited number of articles concerns quality standard, implementation and TQM adoption in educational institution. Authors such as Peters John (1999) support ISO 9000 as a global quality system for educational institution and assure that education providers are keeping their promises to the students. Karapetrovic (2001) addressed the issues of why and how engineering schools could implement the ISO 9001:2000 standard. A seven-step approach to implement ISO 9001:2000 was proposed. Nair and
Gonzales (2004) discovered that the ability of school employees to make decisions and to solve problems was improved by the ISO 9000. The schools had an improvement of their general procedures and an increased credibility in the community. Mittal (2002) come across some quality issues in schools where implementation of ISO 9000 provided a framework to improve existing resources and processes.
CONCLUSION
The Indian technology education system is growing rapidly and is subjected fast radical changes since its inception. But, it is now facing major threats which also create ample opportunities and room for qualitative improvements. The foreign universities are creates also stepping in with the proven model of engineering education. To achieve the Mission 2020, we need engineers who will contribute to society through productive and satisfying engineering careers as innovators, decision-makers and leaders in the global economy of the twenty first century. To realize this, the education system need to be strengthened which will be capable of honing the students to attain all-rounded multi-faceted personality; to acquire leadership qualities, to sharpen communication and interpersonal skills, to acquire knowledge of the latest trends in technology, to have exposure to industrial climate and to gain confidence to face challenges in the highly competitive and ever-changing industrial world. The regulatory and accreditation bodies should be autonomous in true sense as suggested by FICCI and National Knowledge Commission. The faculty shortages; infrastructure deficiencies; curricula obsolescence; lack of autonomy in academic, financial, administrative, and managerial matters; poor involvement in knowledge creation and dissemination, and poor interaction with community and economy need to be addressed. There should be deliberate attempts to attract and retain the qualified staff and faculty. To develop existing employees, the formulated promotion procedures, incentives for quality performance, and staff development policies should be developed and implemented effectively.
The possible adoption of commercially-based approaches such as TQM in a public sector like education can be useful to revitalize the engineering education systems. In order to maximize the satisfaction of internal and external customers, which includes students, employees, industries, government and society at large, the system dynamics and the interlinking of quality related factors, should be addressed while designing a quality management system. The conceptual TQM model has been developed keeping in mind the diversified interest. If implemented effectively and using quality assurance systems like ISO 9001:2000, the TQM excellence model should lead to Quality of graduates; Quality manpower; Improved quality of intake; Quality of research; Research papers; Grants and Funding; Improved Financial power; Reputation; Brand Equity; Products and processes; Patents; Books; MoUs; International / National Conferences; Short term courses; QIP; Scholarships; Credibility; Professional society activities; and Role Model. It will move us forward to have economy to that of economy of developed nations such as USA, UK, France, Germany and Japan.
REFERENCES
[1] Ramona Kay Michael and Victor E. Sower, “A comprehensive model for implementing total quality management in higher education”, Benchmarking for Quality Management & Technology, Vol. 4 No. 2, 1997, pp. 104-120.
[2] V.H.Y. Lo and D. Sculli, “An application of TQM concepts in education”, Training for Quality, Volume 4 · Number 3 · 1996 · pp. 16–22.
[3] Sangeeta Sahney, D.K. Banwet and S. Karunes, “A SERVQUAL and QFD approach to total quality education: A student perspective”, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management Vol. 53 No. 2, 2004, pp. 143-166.
[4] Lachlan E.D. Crawford and Paul Shutler, “Total quality management in education: problems and issues for the classroom teacher”, The International Journal of Educational Management,13/2, 1999, pp. 67-72.
[5] Mohammad S. Owlia and Elaine M. Aspinwall, “TQM in higher education –a review”, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management,Vol. 14 No. 5, 1997, pp. 527-543.
[6] Majid Jaraiedi and David Ritz, “Total Quality Management Applied to Engineering Education”, Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 2 No. 1, 1994, pp. 32-40.
[7] P.B. Sakthivel, G. Rajendran, and R. Raju, “TQM implementation and Students’ satisfaction of academic performance”, The TQM Magazine Vol. 17 No. 6, 2005, pp. 573-589
[8] Jane E. Schukoske, “Bringing foreign universities to India”, The Hindu, 14/11/2006, http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/14/stories/2006111402491000.htm
[9] R. Natarajan, “The Role of Accreditation in Promoting Quality Assurance of Technical Education”, International Journal of Engineering Education, 2000, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 85-96.
[10] R. Natarajan, “Emerging Trends in Engineering Education – Indian Perspectives”, 16th Australian International Education Conference 30 September – 4 October 2002, Hobart, Page 1-10.
[11] FICCI Report, “FICCI proposes single regulatory body for technical education”, Economic Times, India - 1 Mar 2008.
[12] Sajal K. Palit, “The Development of Engineering and Technical Education in India”, Global J. of Engng. Educ., 1998, Vol. 2, No.3, pp- 317-327.
[13]“Technical Education in India”, Educational Institutes Resource Bank, www.indiaedu.com
[14] Vikram Singh, Sandeep Grover, and Ashok Kumar, “Evaluation of quality in an educational institute: a quality function deployment approach”, Educational Research and Review, May, 2008, Vol. 3 (4), pp. 162-168, May, 2008.
[15] National Project Implementation Unit report submitted to HRD, Govt. of India, “Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme of Government of India”,August,2002
[16] Kannan Kasturi, “Higher education: The underbelly of privatization”, India Together, 08 November 2008.
[17] Paul M.E. Shutler and Lachlan E.D. Crawford, “The challenge of ISO 9000 certification in higher education” Quality Assurance in Education, Volume 6, Number 3, 1998, pp. 152–161.
[18] Sangeeta Sahney, Devinder Kumar Banwet, and Sabita Karunes, “Enhancing quality in education: application of quality function deployment-an industry perspective”, Work study, Volume 52, Number 6, 2003, pp. 297-309.
[19] R. Jagadeesh, “Assuring quality in management education: the Indian context”, Quality Assurance in Education,Volume 8 . Number 3, 2000, pp. 110-119.
[20] Jaideep Motwani, and Ashok Kumar, “The need for implementing total quality management in education”, International Journal of Educational Management, 11, 3, 1997, pp. 131–135.
Technical Education in India with TQM
[email protected]
In India, Technical education is imparted at different levels- certificate, diploma, degree, post graduate diploma, post graduate degree, research, post doctoral research etc. Technical education plays an important role in the overall development of a nation and so has been its role in our country too. Our Technical education system has world’s second largest population in engineering education. The number of degree institutes and polytechnics are increasing like a mushroom. The quality of technocrats that this system is producing, is a constant worry. NCERT frames the concept of quality as “the urge to reform within the system” and stipulates that, “quality is the measure of the extent to which the goals of the system have been articulated.” This definition would include different characteristics of the system that serve the goals of education, including quality of teachers, curricula, milieu, which affect how well a child learns. ISO 9000 standards are rapidly being implemented in many service industries such as educational institutions, banking sectors and postal services etc. These standards are gaining popularity in educational institutions in particular. Absence of any quality standard specific to education sector has given a scope to implement ISO 9000 quality standards in educational institutions.
This is an attempt to explore the practice of ISO 9000 standards in Indian educational institutions. This study explores the motives of implementing ISO 9000 standards, problems faced during implementation and benefits after implementation of this standard in educational institutes of India. This is an attempt to study the present status of engineering education system in India and the success of the mechanisms to assure the quality of the graduating students. The clues are drawn from TQM to develop a conceptual model for excellence in engineering education and ISO 9001:2000 as a quality assurance system. This paper presents the detailed survey carried out to find out the contribution of ISO 9000 standards in Indian educational institutions. This paper reveals the motives of implementing ISO 9000 standards in educational institutions and its benefits to organisation.
The possible adoption of commercially-based approaches such as TQM in a public sector like education can be useful to revitalize the engineering education systems. In order to maximize the satisfaction of internal and external products, which includes students, employees, industries, government and society at large, the system dynamics and the interlinking of quality related factors, should be addressed while designing a quality management system. The conceptual TQM model has been developed keeping in mind the diversified interest. If implemented effectively and using quality assurance systems like ISO 9001:2000, the TQM excellence model should lead to Quality of graduates; Quality manpower; Improved quality of intake; Quality of research; Research papers; Grants and Funding; Improved Financial power; Reputation; Brand Equity; Products and processes; Patents; Books; MoUs; International / National Conferences; Short term courses; QIP; Scholarships; Credibility; Professional society activities; and Role Model. It will move us forward to have economy to that of economy of developed nations such as USA, UK, France, Germany and Japan.
If we consider the correlation developed earlier for engineers per million population withGDP the number of engineering graduates are 3.3 lakhs in 2012 and 5.3 lakhs in 2017.We develop a stabilization scenario with an increased emphasis on quality. The focus should not just be on the numbers of technical degrees, but also on the quality. The norms could include proven excellence in academic programmes, faculty quality and research output, and potential for growth. Selected institutions should be provided special funds and support to enable a successful upgrade.
The present study on Indian engineering and technical education reveals that the leading institutions have adopted standard competitive research and object-oriented engineering study programmes. Some of the programmes are innovative in nature and offer tremendous advantages and benefits to students, universities and industries. The main benefits to the students can be summarised as: gaining confidence in decision making, relating theory with practice, increased job opportunities, realisation of responsibility, opportunities to know one’s weaknesses and strengths, and opportunities to work with modern equipment and on problems of current importance.
ISO 9000 standards in education
Education itself is a multi-million dollar industry and is very important for country’s development. Education is vital for society and no one can ignore its role and contribution. Quality assurance in education is a multifaceted problem. The quality of an educational institute is expected to be perfect by various stakeholders such as parents, students, industry and society. Student and their parents are rightfully questioning the quality of curriculum, instructional delivery, the learning environment and improvement of knowledge. The competitive environment demands students to have in depth and
practical knowledge, understanding of their specific area along with interpersonal and communication skills. As a society we want that institution must ensure quality of education to provide able professionals for continuous growth and development.
ISO benefits are segregated into four different parts as benefits to system, faculty, students and external benefits to organisation. The survey reveals that the most important motive of the institutions is documentation of the systems of the institute. The encouraging factor is that institutions are being benefited from ISO 9000 certification.
Since technical education determines the development and socio-economic condition of a nation, there is a greater need for high quality technical education to produce technically skilled manpower in India. A high quality engineer or technician can obviously be created only through high quality engineering and vocational teaching and training.
Technical education is imparted at three different levels in India:
· Industrial Training Institutes (ITI), which conduct trade courses for skilled workers.
· Polytechnic Institutes, which conduct diplomas to produce middle level technicians.
· Engineering Colleges, which conduct undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in engineering and technology.
There are engineering institutes and colleges that are supported by the state and central governments, and also a large number of private engineering colleges and institutes that provide technical education in India. The number of private institutions is increasing rapidly. Government expenditure in technical education has increased by almost 400 times from the first five year plan to the eighth. Some of the industrially developed states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh have experienced phenomenal growth both in numbers of students and engineering and technical institutions over the last two decades.
Finally, it can be concluded that other universities and institutions should adopt more job and object-oriented engineering education curricula linked with industries and research organisations to meet the present and future challenges of rapid technological changes and industrial development in India.This Paper reviews the present status of the engineering education in India and analyses the quality assurance systems to address the quality related problems. The TQM approach has been suggested to achieve “Quality Engineering Education” whereas ISO 9001 will be the Quality Assurance Mechanism.
Some of the industrially developed states, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh , have experienced phenomenal growth both in numbers of students and engineering and technical institutions over the last two decades. There are engineering institutes and colleges that are supported by the state and central governments, and also a large number of private engineering colleges and institutes that provide technical education in India. The number of private institutions is increasing rapidly. The AICTE non-approved institutes are apart from this. Some polytechnics are also running in double shifts. Government expenditure in technical education has increased by almost 400 times from the first five year plan.
Before discussing the issue of improving quality of engineering education, it is appropriate to discuss the effectiveness of present engineering education. Education is not just about enrolment numbers. What is the quality of education provided by the present engineering institutions? While there are excellent institutions that have been established over the years like IITs, RECs, NITs, the concern is about the large number of institutions that have mushroomed in the last decade or so. The following note is an eye opener….. “
Resource constraints, low efficiency of utilization of existing resources and lack of mechanism for sharing physical and human resources of sister institutions have led to large scale obsolescence of physical resources, deterioration of quality of teaching/learning processes and lowering of competence of teachers. Low internal efficiency of most institutions due to large drop outs and failure rates.
Rapid obsolescence of curricula and course contents due to infrequent revision and much delayed response to technological advances and consequent market demands.
Failure to attract and retain high quality faculty due to archaic recruitment and promotion procedures, absence of incentives for quality performance, and nonexistent staff development policies in most institutions.
The quality of education and training being imparted in the technical education institutions varies from excellent to poor, with some institutions comparing favorably with the best in the world and others suffering from different degrees of faculty shortages; infrastructure deficiencies; curricula obsolescence; lack of autonomy in academic, financial, administrative, and managerial matters; poor involvement in knowledge creation and dissemination, and poor interaction with community and economy.
Create new Engineering colleges through Public-Private Partnerships – The present model for private engineering colleges is unlikely to build long-term quality engineering institutions. The revenues from fees are capped and are the main income. Salaries account for about 80% of the total budget. There is very little operational flexibility for the college principal or Director to take new initiatives. Alternative funding models need to be explored.
A possible model is the creation of a corpus by a private company/ group of companies, commitment by the state/ central government towards grant in aid (based on the number of students joining in the open seats), commitment by the private promoter to provide funds required to compensate any annual budget deficit. The private promoter can be permitted to obtain returns from the annual surplus (based on the contributions made to the corpus). Alternately incentives could be provided in terms of tax savings, deductions for contributions to the corpus In addition to this, the sponsors may be allowed a choice of government council members (from an approved master list of professionals, experts and educationalists) and may be provided priority in campus interviews. .The quality system was originally created for manufacturing industry. Now service industry is also making lots of effort to improve their service quality. These ISO 9000 international quality standards are being implemented in many service organisations such as educational institutions, banking services, postal services, etc. Globalisation of market, heightened quality requirements through tough competition and mushrooming of educational institutes have lead to the quality thrusts nationally and internationally. Educational institutes are pressurised to be more efficient, work better with less funding, meet the needs of market and engage in long lasting quality improvement efforts. Absence of any grading system or a specific quality standard of educational institutes in India has given a scope to implement ISO 9000 in educational institutions. As a consequence of quality movement in industry, educational institutions are inspired to go for some sort of quality management system in order to gain competitive advantage and to promote a strategic development of educational institutes. A variety of educational institution in USA, Canada, Singapore, UK and Australia has started to implement ISO 9000 (Zuckerman and Rhodes, 2000).Many vocational educational institutes have thrust to the quality management system of ISO 9000 in order to establish consistency and control over the quality of such education. Nair and Gonzales (2004) investigated the strengths and weakness of ISO 9000 quality management systems in vocational education. ISO 9000 is a set of quality standards that assist an organisation to identify, correct and prevent error, and promote continual improvement. Educational institutions are implementing ISO 9000, as they have to face stiff global competition. ISO 9000 standards were revised in 1994 and then 2000. The latest standard of ISO 9001:2000 is designed to meet the needs of service sector including education sector.
The Indian technology education system is growing rapidly and is subjected fast radical changes since its inception. But, it is now facing major threats which also create ample opportunities and room for qualitative improvements. The foreign universities are creates also stepping in with the proven model of engineering education. To achieve the Mission 2020, we need engineers who will contribute to society through productive and satisfying engineering careers as innovators, decision-makers and leaders in the global economy of the twenty first century. To realize this, the education system need to be strengthened which will be capable of honing the students to attain all-rounded multi-faceted personality; to acquire leadership qualities, to sharpen communication and interpersonal skills, to acquire knowledge of the latest trends in technology, to have exposure to industrial climate and to gain confidence to face challenges in the highly competitive and ever-changing industrial world. The regulatory and accreditation bodies should be autonomous in true sense as suggested by FICCI and National Knowledge Commission. The faculty shortages; infrastructure deficiencies; curricula obsolescence; lack of autonomy in academic, financial, administrative, and managerial matters; poor involvement in knowledge creation and dissemination, and poor interaction with community and economy need to be addressed. There should be deliberate attempts to attract and retain the qualified staff and faculty. To develop existing employees, the formulated promotion procedures, incentives for quality performance, and staff development policies should be developed and implemented effectively.
The recent change has decreased the number of available quality system models from three to only one, and major requirements from twenty to following four:
1 Management Responsibility
2 Resource Management
3 Product Realisation
4 Measurement Analysis and Improvement.
These changes represent a more user friendly standard for educational institutions. Elmuti (1996) stated that the ISO 9000 improves operational efficiency and communication within the organisation. It provides uniform products with competitive edge and hence results in greater customer loyalty and market share. This paper is an attempt to explore the practice of ISO 9000 standards in Indian educational institutions. This study explores the motives of implementing ISO 9000 standards, problems faced during implementation and benefits after implementation of this standard in educational institutes of India.
The scope of application ranges from relatively small laboratories to whole institute. Education is the key to the resurgence of India.Since technical education determines the development and socio-economic condition of a nation, there is a greater need for high quality technical education to produce technically skilled manpower in India.
The main purpose of ISO 9000 in education is to provide confidence to the
professionals, students and their parents, employees and various other stakeholders.There are only a limited number of articles concerns quality standard, implementation and TQM adoption in educational institution. Authors such as Peters John (1999) support ISO 9000 as a global quality system for educational institution and assure that education providers are keeping their promises to the students. Karapetrovic (2001) addressed the issues of why and how engineering schools could implement the ISO 9001:2000 standard. A seven-step approach to implement ISO 9001:2000 was proposed. Nair and
Gonzales (2004) discovered that the ability of school employees to make decisions and to solve problems was improved by the ISO 9000. The schools had an improvement of their general procedures and an increased credibility in the community. Mittal (2002) come across some quality issues in schools where implementation of ISO 9000 provided a framework to improve existing resources and processes.
CONCLUSION
The Indian technology education system is growing rapidly and is subjected fast radical changes since its inception. But, it is now facing major threats which also create ample opportunities and room for qualitative improvements. The foreign universities are creates also stepping in with the proven model of engineering education. To achieve the Mission 2020, we need engineers who will contribute to society through productive and satisfying engineering careers as innovators, decision-makers and leaders in the global economy of the twenty first century. To realize this, the education system need to be strengthened which will be capable of honing the students to attain all-rounded multi-faceted personality; to acquire leadership qualities, to sharpen communication and interpersonal skills, to acquire knowledge of the latest trends in technology, to have exposure to industrial climate and to gain confidence to face challenges in the highly competitive and ever-changing industrial world. The regulatory and accreditation bodies should be autonomous in true sense as suggested by FICCI and National Knowledge Commission. The faculty shortages; infrastructure deficiencies; curricula obsolescence; lack of autonomy in academic, financial, administrative, and managerial matters; poor involvement in knowledge creation and dissemination, and poor interaction with community and economy need to be addressed. There should be deliberate attempts to attract and retain the qualified staff and faculty. To develop existing employees, the formulated promotion procedures, incentives for quality performance, and staff development policies should be developed and implemented effectively.
The possible adoption of commercially-based approaches such as TQM in a public sector like education can be useful to revitalize the engineering education systems. In order to maximize the satisfaction of internal and external customers, which includes students, employees, industries, government and society at large, the system dynamics and the interlinking of quality related factors, should be addressed while designing a quality management system. The conceptual TQM model has been developed keeping in mind the diversified interest. If implemented effectively and using quality assurance systems like ISO 9001:2000, the TQM excellence model should lead to Quality of graduates; Quality manpower; Improved quality of intake; Quality of research; Research papers; Grants and Funding; Improved Financial power; Reputation; Brand Equity; Products and processes; Patents; Books; MoUs; International / National Conferences; Short term courses; QIP; Scholarships; Credibility; Professional society activities; and Role Model. It will move us forward to have economy to that of economy of developed nations such as USA, UK, France, Germany and Japan.
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