Quality Assessment of Indian Engineering Programs: An Outcome-based Perspective

South Asian Journal of Management, Jul-Sep 2006 by Viswanadhan, K G

Engineering, more than any other profession, has more direct impact on the wealth creation of a country. The way engineering education is imparted is important to the future of the engineering profession and the country in the context of the growing gap between the need for well-trained engineers and the ability of colleges to produce such engineers. Only a good quality program can produce competent engineers for the national as well as the global market. Quality of an engineering program, at present, is assessed mostly from resource perspective or process perspective. While resources and processes are essential components of any program, the outcomes that result from their successful utilization are much more important to the stakeholders of the program. A study has been conducted to find out the association between the outcomes of the programs and the various resources and processes leading to these outcomes. The NBA (National Board of Accreditation, India) accreditation scores of 162 engineering programs from 42 engineering colleges from different parts of India are utilized for the study. Multiple regression models have been developed and analyzed for drawing conclusions. The results of the study point out the need for a radical change in the present method of quality assessment of engineering programs in India. The paper discusses the development of the regression models, analysis of results and the conclusions drawn from the study. The paper also proposes an outline of an 'outcome-oriented, student-centered' model of quality assessment for the engineering programs in India.

INTRODUCTION

Engineering education is both the cause and effect of many forces in the society. A fast growing industrial sector generates a need for new technologies, and consequently for engineering manpower that can generate new products for the expanding markets. A well-trained engineering manpower can bring about qualitative changes in the nature of industrial activities in any country. Hence, in a technological intensive society, the education and training of the technologists and engineers assume much greater importance and treated as a fundamental requirement. The quality of education received by the engineers will have a direct impact on how the companies, where they are employees, compete and contribute to the global economy. As India moves forward with the ambition of becoming a 'developed country', it is crucial to recognize that an economically strong country can emerge out only if it can convert the technology, and market it to produce wealth for the country. Hence, a need to undertake an intensive systems analysis and a consequent restructuring in all aspects that control, regulate and spread engineering education in India is gaining attention of the educators and other stakeholders (REEE, 2003). As a prerequisite to this analysis, a clear idea has to be formulated about the concept of the quality of engineering education, which is discussed in the section 2. section 3 discusses the analysis of assessment mechanisms based on the accreditation data of National Board of Accreditation (NBA), India. In this section, the details of NBA criteria and process of accreditation, a background of the present study and development of program outcomes using the regression approach are explained. A discussion on

the regression results is also presented at the end of third section. section 4 deals with the details of a proposed 'student competence model' of quality assessment. The paper ends with the conclusions drawn from the study.

LITERATURE REVIEW

VIEWS ON QUALITYOF EDUCATION AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION

What quality education especially engineering education is, and how can it be achieved are of great interest to the stakeholders of engineering education. Debates have been going on in this issue and a single, straightforward answer is very difficult to obtain. A literature survey has been conducted to gather information on this issue and the results are summarized below. Owlia and Aspinwal (1996a) remark while discussing quality in education that both the market orientation and the measurement pose arguments. The terms "customer" and "market" have met with resistance from some educationalists, who argue that they are applicable only to commercial environments. The customer-oriented definition of quality has also been debated on, in light of the complexity in identifying and specifying the customers of education (Madu and Kuei, 1993). Quality in education has been defined variedly-even as, "fitness for purpose" (Tang and Zairi, 1998). Any definition of quality should be expected to change over time, because "it necessarily reflects a society's interpretation of educational needs and the intensity of its moral and financial commitment to fulfilling them" (Mortimore and Stone, 1990). Education quality can be viewed as the combination of the quality of input, process, and output of the education system. Eriksen (1995) argued that the primary input is the student (before exposure to a value-added service) who is subjected to a transformation (the application of a value-added service), which, in turn, produces an output (the student after exposure to a value-added service). It regards education quality as a multi-dimensional concept that cannot be assessed by only one indicator. LeBlanc andNguyen (1997) identified curriculum, physical evidence, responsiveness and access to facilities as the factors, which explain service quality of education. Education Services need specific practices based on the three defining features of services: intangibility, concurrent learning and student participation in the service (Chung et al, 2001). The dynamic and interactive aspects of quality in education is highlighted by Dahlgaard et al. (1995), who define total quality education as an educational culture characterized by increased customer satisfaction through continuous improvement in which all employees and students actively participate. Cheng (1996) defines education quality as the character of the set of elements in the input, process, and output of the education system that provides services that completely satisfy both internal and external strategic constituencies by meeting their explicit and implicit expectations. This definition involves the characteristics of input, process, output and multiple constituencies of an education institution. It regards education quality as a multi-dimensional concept that cannot be assessed by only one indicator.