IAU_KU_2011_Gupta

From Access and Equity to Success and Quality: the Role of NAAC in India

□ Asha Gupta University of Delhi

ashagupta3452@gmail.com

Abstract: With the liberalization of economy in 1991, we find a surge in the demand for higher education and vocational skills in multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious Indian society. Whereas during the first four decades of India’s independence, education played a pivotal role in nation-building, the economic growth and technological development during the last 20 years has led to an escalation in the consumption of higher education and professional skills. With massification of higher education in knowledge-based, technology-driven and highly integrated modern economies, we find a shift in paradigm in terms of more focus on output, performance and relevance than on inputs, equity or access. Though India has a longstanding tradition of equity through reservation, judicial interventions and legal framework, it has yet to go a long way to translate ‘access into success’ and ‘equity into quality’. Only in 1994, the UGC established the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) to stimulate academic environment and quality of teaching and research in India. The very concept of quality covered the issues of equity, access and social justice as far as the NAAC was concerned. It was committed to ‘quality with equity’ in all higher education institutions in India, including for-profit private. So far equity and quality have been viewed as equal but separate strands in terms of policy targets and implementation mechanisms worldwide. Only recently attempts are being made vigorously to bring equity and quality on a common platform. For instance, while assessing and accreditating the quality of an institution, the NAAC has also started focusing on several equity related issues, such as, access to students from socially and economically less developed category; recruitment of faculty from disadvantaged sections of society; support provided to weaker section of students in terms of remedial coaching and financial assistance; access and support to differently-abled students and gender sensitivity. My paper focuses on how the NAAC reflects equity (including main mechanisms for quality assessment) and highlights the impact of the NAAC on promoting equity in terms of institutional policies and practices. The NAAC has indeed played a pioneer role in evolving gender-sensitive and disabled-friendly quality indicators in India as it believes in making and sustaining quality as a continuous, holistic and participatory process. An attempt is also made to highlight the limitations faced by the NAAC in ensuring both equity and quality. The methodology adopted is analytical, conceptual and empirical. The Context Poised at the turn of the third millennium, the universities worldwide are facing both quantitative and qualitative changes - quantitative in terms of massification of higher education and vocational skills and qualitative in terms on innovations in teaching and research matching with the needs and lifestyles of hi-tech societies. We find paradigm shifts from ‘equity and access’ to ‘quality and success’ as far as the realm of higher education is concerned. India is no exception to this worldwide trend. With the advent of knowledge-based and technology-driven modern economies, we find a surge in the demand for skilled persons, on the one hand and those showing innovative, creative, problem-solving and communicative skills, on the other.

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For the first time in history, human mind has become the direct source of production and economic growth. No wonder, the universities are under pressure to focus more on ‘performance and outcome in lieu of inputs and rote learning’, ‘massification in lieu of elitism’, ‘accountability in lieu of academic freedom’, ‘quality and success in lieu of access and equity’. Since the focus is more on building the skill sets to be bought internationally as a commodity, we find an increase in the emphasis on quality assurance by external and independent bodies like any other product or service to be marketed under the ISO stamp. In fact, the concept of quality has been taken from management and development studies (Raghuvanshi, 2011:6-8). It implies customer and/or client satisfaction. It also implies compliance with given and/or promised standards or approximations. However, in the field of education, the notion of quality may signify different meanings from different perspectives from the point of views of students, employers and society. To Cullen (1992: 5):

Quality can mean some normative view of excellence, it can mean a lack of dysfunctions in the academic machine, it can mean orderly inputs and processes, it can mean status relative to colleagues in research and publication, it can mean the quality of the best students and their suitability for higher studies, it can mean the maintenance of skills and standards that suit various employers and professional groups, and it can mean teaching excellence in terms of knowledge added to students participating in programmes. It can be generalized from programmes to the overall activities of an institution or to a state or national system.

It is both surprising and shocking that despite running the 3rd largest system of higher education in the world following the USA and China, India has very few higher education institutions that can be castigated as the ‘centers of excellence’ by international standards. When India got independence in 1947, it had only 19 universities and the literacy rate was just 12% whereas by June 22, 2011, it had 592 universities including 41 central universities, 275 state universities, 130 deemed to be universities, 90 private universities, 55 autonomous universities, 15 centers of open leaning, 150 foreign institutions and 26,000 colleges with 74.45% literacy rate (82.14 % among the males and 65.46 % among the and females). Quite surprisingly, despite multifold increase in terms of number and funding of HEIs, only 12.5% of the India youth in the cohort of 18-24 had access to higher education in India. But India needs at least 15% access to be categorized amongst the developed economies. The official target is to reach 30% GER (Gross Enrolment ratio) by 2060 (XI Five Year Plan, 2007-12, Planning Commission Report, India). Along with the massification of higher education arose the need for quality assurance of the higher education system, especially when India is emerging as an ‘economic and world power-in making’ and when it is found aspiring to become an educational hub in near future. We all know that today higher education is not only playing an increasingly vital role in economic growth and national development but it has also become a trillion dollar enterprise (Gupta, 2008). That’s why we find many English speaking countries vying for full fee paying foreign students to increase their share in rapidly growing higher education and research market. Since there is too much competition in higher education sector worldwide, like many other goods and services, the focus has shifted from equity and access to quality and diversity. Whereas earlier the concept of quality included efforts towards achieving equity, today the emphasis is on seeking diversity as an

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inherent condition for quality to serve the interests of global economy. To William Bowen and Derek Bok (1998: 426-29):

The overall quality of educational program is affected not only by the academic and personal qualities of individual students who are enrolled, but also by the characteristics of the entire group of students who share a common educational experience… In a residential college setting, in particular, a great deal of learning occurs informally… through interactions among students of both sexes; from various states and countries; who have a wide variety of interests, talents, and perspectives; and who are able; directly or indirectly, to learn from differences, and to stimulate one another to re-examine even their most deeply held assumptions about themselves and their world… People do not learn much when they are surrounded only by the likes of themselves.

The concept of quality The concept of quality acquired new meaning and significance in the wake of liberalization of the Indian economy since 1991 and emergence of cut-throat competition in higher education sector worldwide. A need was felt to monitor the quality and standards of the HEIs in India in a more regular, transparent, innovative and creative way in order to keep pace with the best practices worldwide. Generally speaking, quality implies meeting the needs and expectations of the students as clients, on the one hand and market and other stakeholders, on the other (Higher Education India: Issues, Concerns and New Directions, UGC, 2003). Today it has become necessary to assure quality of higher education and professional training delivered by the different HEIs in order to justify ‘value for money’ and/or ‘value for time’. But it remains a big challenge to widen access on equitable grounds and yet maintain high standards in terms of quality. In the case of India, the concept of quality cannot be seen in terms of antonyms – ‘equity versus quality’. Rather we have to see it in terms of ‘equity plus quality’. To H. A. Ranganath (2011: 3), the Director of the NAAC, ‘widening access to higher education does not imply producing less qualified students’ but it implies ‘reaching out increasingly to broad range of learners with different motivations and interests’. It is primarily due to rapid expansion and heterogeneous nature of higher education, we find the need for dependable assurance gaining momentum. It has made it imperative to enforce quality on a massive scale in order to improve the credibility, marketing, legitimacy and acceptability of the Indian HEIs nationally and internationally. That’s why assessment and accreditation by external bodies has acquired a new meaning. Though the actions of such external bodies are guided by the national policies and international benchmarks, many developments, such as, steep rise or decline in the number of students, changes in funding policies, and involvement of for-profit private and foreign institutions can also affect the quality assurance activities in many ways (Harvey, 2006: 288). Since higher education has become a necessary tool for personal upliftment, national growth, social development and promotion of global ethos, the ‘diagnostic tools’ for checking the health of our HEIs ,too, have to be evolving and innovative. We need to evaluate the quality and standards on the basis of consistent performance in teaching, research and community development programs. We should not forget that hundred percent expectations of various stakeholders can never be met as quality remains an ‘elusive’ and ‘ever-evolving’ concept. At the most we can see it as a ‘brand building

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exercise’ with long term perspective to be able to meet the challenges and opportunities thrown by highly competitive and integrated global economy. Viewed from the perspective of the academia, quality or world class education may imply inculcating ‘inquisitive capacity’, ‘abstract thinking’, ‘logical analysis’, ‘scientific outlook’,’ preparedness for life-long learning’, ‘respect for traditional values and culture’, on the one hand, and others’ points of view, on the other (Ranganath, 2011: 15). Judging from the perspective of the industry, quality education may imply ‘seamless path to work’, ‘acquiring critical, problem-solving and communication skills’, ‘learning to learn’, ‘ability to work with diverse (multi-cultural and multi-lingual) teams in diverse settings’, ‘having performance based attitude’, ‘trying to be entrepreneurial and competitive’, ‘ grasping the latest information and communication technologies’, ‘ trying to be culturally sensitive and well-versed in global affairs’, etc. As such, the prime job of the NAAC has been to ensure quality, accountability, improvement and continuity on the basis of reliable assessment and accreditation strategies. It is duty bound not only to assure minimum or desirable standards but also to ensure equity by focusing on the special needs of women, disabled, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes or non-English speaking students. It is also responsible towards ensuring availability of efficient energy systems, water harvesting and conservation, eco-friendly ambience, on the one hand, and civic engagement of the students, staff and faculty, on the other. In the environment of global competition, the products produced by the HEIs in terms of undergraduates, graduates, post-graduates or research scholars in any country need not be assessed merely in terms of their ‘scholastic attainments’, but also in terms of ‘the value system and richness of their personalities’. Today we need to realize that unless and until the quality and standards of HEIs are rigorously enhanced through innovation, creativity and regular monitoring, these institutions cannot capture world attention. It actually demands the very re-examination and re-definition of the aims of higher education. In the context of India, we should also realize that the notions of ‘equity and access’ cannot be separated from those of ‘quality and success’ as over- emphasis on the one set of notion one can be achieved only at the cost of other. As such, we cannot separate the notions of ‘quality and success’ from those of ‘equity and access’ (Gupta and Patil, 2010: 166). India being a country of one billion plus population with only 12.5% gross enrolment rate to higher education in 2011 in the cohort of 18-24, it has become necessary to enhance the access rate on a war footing in order to achieve the target of equity in order to ‘mitigate disparities across regions, gender and social strata in the field of education’. In a country having a hierarchical society based upon caste system and wide regional, socio-cultural and economic disparities, education is the only tool that can provide social mobility and/or economic upliftment to millions of people, especially, the burgeoning middle class (about 4.5 billion people) that is ardently willing to invest in the higher education of their wards. That’s why it has become necessary to assure quality education through external bodies in order to provide consumer protection, especially at a time

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when we find low quality, for-profit private and fly-by-night foreign institutions mushrooming ever since the liberalization of Indian economy in July 1991. In fact, we need to address the issue of accessibility to quality education at the primary level first to be able to assess the need for quality assessment and accreditation of the HEIs in India. In India, despite making primary education free and compulsory for all children from the age of 6 to14 under the Right to Education Act passed in August 2009, approximately 40% of the students, mostly girls, dropout by the time they reach puberty due to familial problems, lower socio-cultural and economic standards. Moreover, most of the parents are found dismayed with the poor standards of most of the government or government-aided schools in their vicinity. They prefer sending their children to for-profit English medium schools by paying exorbitant fees without actually knowing that most of schools happen to be only ‘teaching shops’. In fact, there are very few schools which can be judged as desirable according to national and international standards in terms of infrastructure, teacher-pupil ratio, co-curricular activities, ambience and relevance. No wonder, we find the dropout rates to be very high at the middle class level India, implying very dismal access rate to the HEIs according to international standards. Moreover, we find wide disparities in gross enrolment rates in the HEIs in terms of caste, class, gender, regional or economic background. For instance, according to a national survey, the GER varied from 21% in Kerala to mere 6% in Bihar. It was lower in terms of the national average of 10.10% in the case of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Class. In terms of religion, Muslims were found at 5.23% and girls at 5% in comparison to boys at 12%. In terms of economic standards, the poorer students stood at 2.41% as against the non-poorer students at 12.81%. Similarly urban-rural divide was found quite glaring. In India only about 10% of the populace pays income tax, whereas the vast majority depends on state support. We find wide gaps in terms of constitutional provisions in terms of access and equity and ground realities in actual practice. Quite ironically, the influxes of for-profit private and foreign universities have further widened the gap in terms of quality education and successes (UGC. Thrusts and Priorities during the XI Five Year Plan: 2007-2012). As such, in view of massification of higher education and liberalization of the economy, there is an urgency to focus on ‘access and equity’ and ‘quality and success’ simultaneously. Under the rapidly changing world scenario, due to globalization and fast means of information and communication, we cannot contain the demand for higher education and professional training to select few at the cost of large number of marginalized sections of society in the name of ‘merit’ or ‘arbitrary selection procedure’. Nor can we compromise on quality in a highly competitive and integrated world system. Rather, we need to distribute the social dividends proportionately and in a transparent manner among the new aspirants and groups by striking a balance between equity and quality. There are some reports that suggest that even if students from lower socio-economic background are admitted on the basis of mandatory reservation , they are unable to intermingle normally with upper caste/class students and their performance is adversely affected (Sekhri, 2011). Their access cannot be converted into success merely

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on the basis of affirmative action. Rather such students need to be provided special care, remedial teaching and better communicative and problem-solving skills (Gupta, 2006). The debate about affirmative action In fact, the rise in the demand for higher education and technological skills has brought the issues of ‘access’, ‘equity’, ‘quality’ and ‘success’ to the forefront. Affirmative action is deliberately being promoted as an important device for enhancing access as well as and equity in higher education institutions in India. In fact, it not only serves the interests of the underprivileged but also those of the elite as well. It provides legitimacy and justification to them in a democratic polity. We hardly find any example of ‘affirmative action’, ‘positive discrimination’, ‘reverse discrimination’, ‘reservation’ or ‘quota’ in any non-democratic system either in the present or in the past (Yang, D’souza, Bapat and Colarelli, 2006). Affirmative action is usually deployed to win over the support of the marginalized or under-represented sections of society in the upper strata. The public policies in support of affirmative action are generally justified in the name of ‘equity’, ‘justice’ or ‘democracy’. The underlying goals served by the affirmative action policies in higher education generally are ‘compensation towards the victims of the past discrimination and maltreatment’, ‘redistribution of resources and opportunities from the better off sections of society to the poorer offs’, ‘motivating the students from lower socio-economic and backward classes to aspire for better positions in society’, ‘better appraisal of students’ assessment in terms of potentiality and productivity’, ‘better quality education and learning due to prevailing diversity on campuses’, ‘better access to social capital in terms of useful contacts and networks improving one’s career opportunities’, ‘better chances of integrating societal elite in terms of race and ethnicity’, ‘fostering of a more legitimate and vital democratic order’, etc. (Weisskopf, 2006). Affirmative action can be seen as a peculiar outcome of the socio-cultural, ethnic, geographical, historical, political and/or demographical circumstances rather than common ‘psychological predispositions’. But in India, we find the caste and gender-based discriminations quite deeply entrenched into our socio-cultural, political and psychological upbringing. That’s why the policy of affirmative action has been adopted with the desire to provide justice to all those who have been discriminated in the past on caste basis. In the case of India, the policy of reservation’ or ‘quota’ may be seen as one of the devices towards affirmative action but certainly not as affirmative action per se. To Gerhard Casper, President of the Stanford University (Quoted by Gupta, 2006):

Affirmative action is based on the judgment that a policy of true equal opportunity needs to create opportunities for members of historically underrepresented groups to be drawn into various walks of life from which they might otherwise be shut out. Barriers continue to exist in society, and therefore affirmative action asks us to cast our network widely to broaden the competition and to engage in more active efforts for locating and recruiting applicants.

It means extending the ‘concept of merit’ from stringent ‘academic grades and test scores’ to ‘unquantifiable human qualities and capacities’ including ‘artistic or musical

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talent’, ‘athletic ability’, ‘fine arts’, ‘strength of character’, ‘depicted leadership qualities’, ‘extracurricular activities’, ‘community service’, ‘geographical diversity’, etc (Association of American Universities in a statement on Importance of Diversity in University Admissions in The New York Times, April 1997). Revisiting the notion of merit, the Department for Education and Skills in London, too, in its report on Widening Access in Higher Education in January 2003, had emphasized on the need for ‘raising the academic attainment of underserved student population’, ‘increasing the aspiration of students from these groups’ and ‘influencing and broadening university admissions to include an expanded notion of merit’ (Douglass, 2005: 108). As such, the policy of reservation in higher education in India cannot be seen in isolation. It has to be seen in the context of overall socio-cultural, historical and political background. The caste system still playing a dominant role in Indian politics and society is estimated to be 2500 year old. Since 90% of the populace still does not pay any income tax, caste is still counted in ascertaining the socio-economic status of an individual. In earlier times, generally speaking, the ‘caste’ coincided with the ‘class’. Gradually the caste degenerated into jati system (Srinivas, 1996). Since jati implying caste, has been pervading Indian socio-economic and political system since ages, constitutional provisions had to be made to deal with it. The idea was to reserve a few places in educational institutions and government jobs for socially backward classes who had been historically, economically and socially depressed in order to improve their general well-being (The Economist, December 19, 2005). It was believed that if we could provide access to education to vast majorities, it would help in bridging social divide in terms of caste, creed, language, gender, region, economic and social prosperity. It was also believed that affirmative action would lead to social and upward mobility by converting lower caste students into professionally-trained class. As such, enhancing access, equity and diversity in higher education does not mean that all must be treated as ‘equal’ or ‘exactly the same’. Nor does it imply equal or proportional representation in all areas of higher education and institutional operations. It simply implies being systematically fair. It means that consideration for all on an equal footing should be justified only if it is in the public interest. Such an approach encourages devising some alternatives to affirmative action in order to be able to strike a balance between ‘equity’ and ‘equality’, on the one hand, and ‘individual gain’ and ‘public accountability’, on the other. It requires ‘greater accuracy’, ‘creativity’ and ‘autonomy’ in the appraisal of the qualifications of the prospective students to be able to serve the ‘individual’, ‘institutional’, ‘national’ and ‘international’ interests. Whereas the debate on the merits and demerits of affirmative action still continues unabated, nobody can deny the harsh reality that affirmative action will continue in one form or other as long as inequities prevail in any society. In fact, there cannot be any single, complete or permanent solution to deal with the prevailing inequities in a given set up (Crosby, 2004). The ‘demographic changes’, ‘hyper-mobility’, ‘entrance of non-traditional or working students,’ ‘need for lifelong learning’, ‘facility for online and distributed learning’, ‘entrance of private and corporate world into the realm of higher education sector’, ‘demand driven higher education policy’, ‘more focus on competencies

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and output than inputs or supply-driven education’ and other similar trends call for new and innovative measures to enhance equity and access in higher education worldwide. It can be quite challenging to strike a balance between ‘access and success’, on the one hand, and ‘equity and quality’, on the other. Moreover, we should not forget that that it is one thing to provide access on the basis of affirmative action, but it is quite another thing to convert this access into success (Gidley, Hampson, Wheeler and Elleni, 2010: 1-12). It is possible only when access is converted into meaningful participation or civic engagement with grace and dignity, amounting to peoples’ empowerment in the true sense of the term. To Anver Saloojee (2001):

Social inclusion is about social cohesion plus, it is about citizenship plus, it is about accommodation plus, it is anti-essentialist plus, it is about rights and responsibilities plus, it is about accommodation of differences plus, it is democracy plus, it is about a new way of thinking about problems of injustice, inequalities and exclusivity plus. It is the combination of various pluses that make the discourse on social inclusion so incredibly exciting.

It implies striving for equity not in the sense of equality but in the sense of justice and fairness. No wonder, we find the focus of external quality assurance bodies, too, shifting from ‘access and equity’ to ‘success and quality’. Whereas equity needs conscious efforts towards diminishing discriminations based upon socially constructed boundaries around gender, caste or creed, language or region, the notion of quality aims at celebrating the difference. The shift from access and equity to success and quality should be seen as an attempt towards blending of ethnicities, cultures, races, religions and genders possible in an enabling and inclusive environment of civility, collegiality and mutual respect. It should be seen as new culture of ‘human behavior that honors peoples, where they are, with what they know, how they acquire their knowledge, and how they apply it’ (Luhabe 2001: 75). The NAAC’s approach In order to systematize the need towards enhancing access, equity, quality and success of higher education institutions in India to meet the national and global challenges, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council was established in 1994 as an autonomous body under the UGC Act. The idea was not only to establish a few centers of excellence, but also to bridge the gap in terms of standards among various HEIs at the center and state level by making assessment and accreditation of HEIs mandatory, including the private ones. Only recently, it was realized that it is not enough to have a few HEIs as centers of excellence, such as, The Indian Institutes of Technology(IITs) or the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), but it is imperative to have ‘uniformly good performance across the world’ in terms of ‘global competitiveness’, ‘relevance’, ‘meeting the demand for skilled human resource’, ‘equitable quality’, ‘professional management’, ‘prioritization of goals’ and ‘sustainable funding towards future growth and development’ (Prasad, 2006). The NAAC was established with the prime motto of making quality the defining element of higher education in India. The main functions of the NAAC have been:

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• to arrange for periodic assessment and accreditation of institutions of higher

education or units thereof, or specific academic programmes or projects,

• to stimulate the academic environment for promotion of quality in teaching-learning and research in higher education institutions,

• to encourage self-evaluation, accountability, autonomy and innovations in higher

education,

• to undertake quality-related research studies, consultancy and training programmes, and

• to collaborate with other stakeholders of higher education for quality education,

promotion and sustenance.

The NAAC adopted new methodology of assessment and accreditation since April 2007 in view of its new missions pertaining to equity and access, on the one hand, and quality and success, on the other. For instance, with the ‘expansion of higher education’, ‘emergence of private sector and foreign stakeholders’, ‘use of technology in the delivery of higher education and vocational skills through open learning’ and ‘emergence of cross-border higher education’, the NAAC has to play a pivotal role in enhancing access knowing fully well how important the HEIs have become in harnessing human resource needed for knowledge-based and technology-driven modern economies at the national and international levels but it is equally important for it to ensure social justice by focusing on equity. It is also responsible for ensuring that the students acquire global competencies through quality education in order to meet global requirements for competent and skilled workforce. It has also to ensure that beside the universal values of truth and righteousness, students imbibe appropriate values in commensuration with their socio-cultural, economic and environmental realities. It has also to ensure that students, staff and faculty are able to use electronic media effectively. The NAAC uses seven point criteria for assessment and accreditation in quest for excellence - (1) curricular, (2) teaching, learning and evaluation, (3) research and consultancy, (4) quality of infrastructure, (5) student support, (6) leadership and governance and (7) innovative practices (NAAC, 2007: 14). The seven point criteria is used to help the institution develop its capabilities in order to be able to focus on ‘quality initiatives’, ‘quality sustenance’ and ‘quality enhancement’. For instance, the focus on academic flexibility and diversity can help an institution serve better the needs of its learners with diverse needs, interests and capabilities. By focusing on interactive teaching methods, it can encourage higher order of thinking among the students. It sees to it that while framing the admission policy, due weightage is given to diverse background of the students, including females and students from backward communities or regions. The same criterion applies for the selection of the faculty. The NAAC also encourages community service by the students, staff and academia alike through its evaluation

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processes or making disabled-friendly suggestions. It also encourages the formation of grievance redressal mechanisms, on the one hand and effective resource mobilization and judicious allocation of budget, on the other. It can also include inclusive practices as a part of quality education, implying vast gaps in terms of quality and standards, on the one hand and facilities and infrastructure, on the other. It has been confirmed by some studies made about the effects of affirmative action on quality and merit in the HEIs. For instance, in a shocking incident quoted by the former UGC chairman, Sukhdev Thorat (2006), it was revealed that the occupants belonging to the SC/ST students’ hostel were denied to play carom board in the recreation room of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi – one of the most prestigious medical institutions in India. Similarly, in a yet another shocking incident, it was reported that a student belonging to SC category was discouraged to study astrology as one of the subjects offered by the Sanskrit Department of the University of Delhi (The Times of India, New Delhi, September 13, 2011). As such, in the Indian context, the question of accessibility to quality education needs to be addressed on the basis of vast socio-economic, cultural, linguistic, regional and gender based inequities. A large number of non-English speaking students also find it very difficult to cope up with the latest western syllabi despite access to the best of the institutions. They need special remedial classes, financial and emotional support. They are unable to assimilate with the mainstream because of poor schooling, lower socio-economic and regional background. Some of them happen to be the first generation students and lack the necessary advice, guidance and support from their families like other high caste/class students coming from private English medium schools. As such, the concept of quality has to be seen in relative terms. The quality component may differ from institution to institution and from region to region. In fact, institutions like the NAAC can play a crucial role in making the higher education institutions sensitive to the need of the hour in terms of educational, social, economic and international needs and expectations of the market and industry. It can encourage various HEIs to follow not only equity and access but also to concentrate on outputs by assuring quality and success in terms of holistic development and not just rote learning. To be innovative and creative, the students, staff and faculty need proper opportunities, academic freedom and ambience. Therefore, the focus of the NAAC, too, has been shifting from ‘inputs to outputs’, ‘equity to quality’, ‘access to success’, ‘autonomy to accountability’, ‘homogeneity to diversification’, ‘ decentralization to decentralization’, ‘from mere dissemination to creation of new knowledge’, ‘ from elitism to massification’, ‘from knowledge for the sake of knowledge to knowledge in application’, ‘ from the promotion being model of development to having model of development’, etc. (Gupta, 2008: 18). Role of the NAAC In fact, the NAAC in India has come a long way in embedding the quality culture among various stockholders through various innovative practices and initiatives. In fact, the proactive initiatives of the NAAC go beyond the accreditation processes. The initiatives

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taken by it include steps towards promoting gender sensitive quality indicators, one the one hand and innovative and healthy practices for the differently-abled persons, on the other. The assessors from the NAAC have been regularly giving considerations to such issues while judging the parameters of quality in a given institution. For instance, the NAAC teams have raised explicit questions about enrolment of students from weaker and disadvantaged sections of Indian society as is evident from the re-accreditation reports of various universities. Such efforts have encouraged various HEIs to improve students’ support system by providing more scholarships, better facilities and latest technology. NAAC”S efforts have also helped in making these institutions more disabled-friendly. For instance, the J D University provided 50 Braille books and 5000 audio books for disabled students in its library on the basis of inputs received from the NAAC (Gupta and Patil, 2010: 169). Similarly, the NAAC has raised queries about faculty being recruited from the disadvantaged communities, thereby encouraging various HEIs to focus on these issues and follow the ‘roster system on the basis of reservation’ for faculty from the SCs, STs and OBCs category. In India 22.5% seats are reserved for faculty from these categories based upon social backwardness instead of lower economic standards. In fact, the NAAC has played a proactive role in enhancing ‘gender based equity’, ‘women’s empowerment’, ‘legal literacy for women’, etc. It has used many innovative methods to ensure gender parity in HEIs at the students, staff and faculty level by insisting on ‘sex-disaggregated data’, ‘number of women getting financial support’, ‘availability of women councillors’, ‘cells dealing with sexual harassment’, ‘availability of women doctors when required’, ‘number of women faculty’, ‘number of women in selection boards and governing bodies’, ‘number of gender sensitization programmes’, ‘number of seminars organized on women related issues’, ‘number of leadership camps organized for women’, etc. (ibid, 171-72). Quite surprisingly, the prime concern of the NAAC has not been just to force accountability or ensure conformity to rules and regulations laid down by the UGC but to encourage quality improvement in terms of ‘access’, ‘equity’, ‘competitiveness’, ‘job preparedness’, ‘quality’, ‘success’ and ‘relevance’. It has definitely helped in creating a data base of the accreditated higher education institutions in India for the use of policymakers, funding agencies and future employers (Gupta & Patil, 2010: 171). Moreover, it has played a crucial role in establishing some sort of a balance among the apparently contradictory goals of enhancing access, equity and quality in various HEIs simultaneously. The NAAC has certainly played a pivotal role in stopping the ‘brain drain’ and the ‘capital flight’ to some extent by stopping millions of students seeking higher and professional education abroad due to lack of quality education in the homeland. Instead of spending millions of dollars on students pursuing higher education abroad, quality education assurance can make India an educational hub in itself. India has the necessary resources, both in terms of quantity and quality, to convert itself into a provider of market-friendly, diverse and cost-effective higher education and professional training. Already one of the five giants in information and communication technology worldwide

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despite very poor GER, India can definitely rope in the private and foreign providers by enacting proper legislation and creating the necessary regulatory environment, on the one hand, and by keeping due scope for creativity and innovation, on the other. It should be noted that in those countries, where we find well-defined policies towards equal opportunities in higher education, the External Quality Agencies (EQAs) need not play a proactive role, such as, Australia, but in those countries, where we find such policies lacking, underdeveloped or not so highlighted, the EQAs may have to play a proactive role, such as, South Africa. In India, we find well-defined public policies as far as equity in higher education is concerned but we need more ‘well-defined’, ‘well-planned’ and ‘well-financed’ public policies in order to spread the culture of quality to thousands of higher education institutions spread all over the country. As a matter of fact, demographic, regional and gender-based disparities simply cannot be dealt at the level of the HEIs but they have to be dealt with more rigorously by improving the quality of education at the lower levels. Moreover, quality education has to be seen as a key to economic development, political stability and inclusive growth. Nor should we forget that only quality education can lead to holistic development. Further, we should realize that in the ‘knowledge-based’ and ‘technology-driven’ modern economies, there is an urgent need to lay more stress on ‘soft skills based on emotional intelligence’ than ‘intellectual prowess based upon academic pursuits, standardized curriculum and rote learning’. Hence the focus of the EQAs is to ensure that instead of epistemological and organizational forms of knowledge production and dissemination, the higher education institutions play a more protagonist role by training productive, creative and innovative human resource that could be valuable both to the individual and society beyond the jurisdiction of nation state. In most probability, the future will belong to those countries who are rich in human resource both in terms of quantity and quality and those who have the capacity and the courage to ‘chase their dreams’ and ‘create work’ instead of chasing the set jobs in public, private or transnational settings. It seems that in future, more and more students will have to rely on ‘self-studies’, ‘learning from the peer group’ and ‘on-job training’. Since the sources of learning are likely to be diverse, the criteria for quality assessment by external bodies, too, will have to be diverse and, in other words, ‘relative’. Quite surprisingly, no systematic studies have been made so far on the impact of external quality assurance processes on higher education in India. Nor is it easy to quantify such impact but it is generally assumed that they have played quite a positive role in embedding the ‘culture of quality’ in higher education institutions in India. Though some positive interventions by such bodies have certainly helped in pedagogic developments, widening of access, enhancing of equity and promotion of information technology yet the impact has not been the same on all the institutions. By March 2011, the NAAC had assessed and accredited 159 universities and 4171 colleges. It was found to be more popular in the southern parts of India than the northern ones. As an outcome of the NAAC’s efforts, whereas some universities have used the grades given by it for ‘self-boosting’ and ‘image-building’, many universities in India, especially

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in the northern parts, are still reluctant to get themselves assessed and accredited by the NAAC as they consider it an encroachment on their autonomy and academic freedom. Though the government is in the process of making assessment and accredited mandatory for all higher education institutions in India, so far, it has been carried out only on voluntary basis. Moreover, there has been no direct link between quality assurance by external bodies and the institutional funding. Nor can there be any consensus about the uniform standards to be imposed on various HEIs spread all over India due to mutually conflicting expectations of various stakeholders. Nor can the universities maintain their elitist form and academic integrity in the wake of massification and commodification of higher education (Gupta, 2011). But nobody can deny that the efforts made by the NAAC have certainly helped in building internal quality processes, on the one hand, and bringing hostile groups together in order to face the external quality assurance bodies, on the other. It has boosted the quality of those institutions already doing well and it has certainly motivated the others to do better. It has also motivated the academia to publish in leading journals in India and abroad. In fact, the visits by the peer teams have some catalytic impact on the institutions under review by increasing participation, transparency and accountability in teaching, research and administration, on the one hand and providing a bird’s eye view about the outside world’s expectations, on the other. Such visits and reviews by the peer teams have made the stakeholders realise how important it is to maintain quality and enhance pedagogical standards and academic integrity. Whereas some institutions have used accreditation by the NAAC as a marketing strategy, others have used it for making themselves more relevant and up to date. Even some of the neighbouring countries have consulted the NAAC as the focal point and it has encouraged various institutions to look beyond the routine teaching and research and differentiate between the ‘gloss from reality’ (Stella, 2002: 197).Learning from the best practices adopted by the external quality assurance bodies abroad, we find a paradigm shift in the core values of the NAAC as far as the concept of quality is concerned. To Antony Stella (2002: 202-03):

(1) the concept of quality remains ever evolving. It is a holistic concept and never be achieved fully once for all,

(2) assessment and accreditation should be seen as means to quality concerns and certainly not an end,

(3) assessment can be useful only if it is acceptable to the institutions concerned, not otherwise,

(4) quality assessment depends to a large extent on the judgment of peer group rather than quantitative indicators,

(5) the units of assessment chosen should be viable, feasible and practical in local context,

(6) quality assessment should be seen as a complex issue and not just an application of the pre-determined criteria,

(7) it is an extravagant way of assuring minimum standards as it involves huge costs in terms of fiscal resources and administrative prowness.

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(8) it is important to avoid overloading the EQAs with multiple or conflicting roles in order to achieve better results,

(9) even the EQAs need to evaluate their criteria and processes regularly in order to keep pace with the changing needs and circumstances,

(10) it is important to keep scope for variance. The EQAs should serve as agents of change rather than bodies seeking conformity in toto.

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