Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies, Online ISSN 2278-8808, SJIF 2016 = 6.17, www.srjis.com UGC Approved Sr. No.49366, MAR–APR, 2018, VOL- 5/44 MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR SYSTEMS WITH THE APPLICATION OF DEMING’S PHILOSOPHY Ritu Tripathi Chakravarty, Ph. D. Assistant Professor, Amity Institute of Education, Amity University, Lucknow Campus, rituchakravarty@gmail.com
There have been a lot of quality improvement initiatives by ministry of higher education. Many changes have occurred in the systems and processes but still there is lots of gap between the objectives framed and objectives achieved. There are many challenges like dropout rate of girls, infrastructural issues, financial deficits, students’ unrest, and teachers’ commitments which still needed to be addressed. Edward W Deming is known as father of Quality. He has given many corrective action plans for continuously improving the systems. His philosophy which is known as Deming’14 point Philosophy provides quality enhancement ideas for improvement. In the present paper researcher had tried to identified followings problems in Indian higher education and they can faced by adopting Deming’s 14 point Philosophy of Systems Improvement
Scholarly Research Journal's is licensed Based on a work at www.srjis.com Introduction For any higher education institution, there are several aspects of reputation which are important. Since it is built upon the highly competitive elements of transparency, reliability, quality, history and price it is important to keep a continuous monitoring of its processes. Once a higher education institution acquires a poor reputation for quality, it takes a very long time to change it its reputation and good or bad can become a matter of national agenda. The management of the competitive weapons, such as quality, can be learned like any other skill, and used to turn round a poor reputation, in time. Review of Indian Higher Education System Indian government has adopted policy of welfare state and providing facility of educational services to the peoples of India. Education has been a joint responsibility between the Union (central) and state governments. The states bear 80% of the fiscal burden for higher education in India. The Union government can pass nationally-binding legislation for higher education and is the final standards and accreditation authority. The Department of Higher Education lies within the Ministry of Human Resource Development in the Union government. Higher education has been on the national agenda of government since its independence. There has been phenomenal growth in the Higher Education System and a virtual explosion Copyright © 2018, Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies
Dr. Ritu Tripathi Chakravarty 10108 (Pg. 10107-10113)
in the number of Universities and colleges. There were only 20 universities and 500 Colleges at the time of Independence; the country has now 416 Universities –251 State Universities, 24 Central Universities, 103 Deemed Universities, 5 Institutions established under State Legislation and 33 Institutes of National Importance established by Act of Parliament. In addition, there are 20677 Colleges including 2166 Women Colleges India has one of the largest higher education systems in the world, with 25.9 million students enrolled in more than 45,000 degree and diploma institutions in the country. As per the planning commission report, higher education system has witnessed particularly high growth in the last decade, with enrollment of students increasing at a CAGR of 10.8% and institutions at a CAGR of 9%.The private sector has played an instrumental role in this growth, with private institutions now accounting for 64% of the total number of institutions and 59% of enrollment in the country, as compared to 43% and 33%, respectively, a decade ago. The Government has also given the required thrust to the sector in its Five Year Plans. During the Eleventh Plan period (2007–2012), India achieved a Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of 17.9%, up from 12.3% at the beginning of the Plan period. Though data speaks positive of achievements still there is lot of gap between theory and practice. In spite of the significant progress made during the past few years, India’s higher education sector is still plagued with several challenges, e.g., gender and geography, lack of high-quality research and education institutions, inequitable access to higher education by community, resulting in sub-optimal outcomes. Present situation is pathetic and Indian educational system is facing lot of challenges and has little or no clue how to face these challenges. Challenges of Higher Education In India. Problems relating to higher education are commercialisation, political interference, mismanagement, falling standards and irrelevance. In the present paper researcher had tried to identified followings problems in Indian higher education and they can faced by adopting Deming’s Philosophy of Systems Improvement:
Traditional System of Teaching and Learning.
Drop Out of Girls in the Higher
Problem of Quality Education.
Expired Evaluation System
Commercialised Educational Services
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Dr. Ritu Tripathi Chakravarty 10109 (Pg. 10107-10113)
Inappropriate Teacher Student Ratio cv
Bureaucracy in Education Sector
Inflexible Structure of Study Programmes .
Lack of Infrastructural Facilities .
Lack of Supply Side Education
Negative Attitude of the Government
Unequal access to education
Adopting Deming’s Philosophy of Quality and systems management for facing the Challenges of Higher Education
Within an educational context, 'quality' tends to be defined from one end of the spectrum to the other. As a result, there is very little chance that two people who happen to be discussing the subject are really even speaking the same language. But a precise and shared definition of quality is needed before meaningful progress can be made toward its realization in higher education. How quality is defined ultimately determines the goals, methods, and priorities in pursuing it. It all comes down to that old Zen proverb that it is impossible to take aim without a target.
Higher education and Deming's '14 Points Philosophy The challenges that lie ahead for higher education in India are enonnous. Therefore it is absolutely essential that higher education professionals are adequately prepared to confront these challenges. One of the key ways in which they can better prepare themselves to survive the coming social, political and economic turbulence is to study Deming's '14 points and understand how they apply to the collegiate environment. (1) Create constancy of purpose Everyone involved in the delivery of systems and services to the higher education must understand and accept the fundamental importance of providing exceptional service at every available opportunity. In other words, everyone involved in the educational process must be in total agreement regarding institutional mission, allocation of resources, how priorities will be established, and how goals and objectives will be accomplished. Copyright © 2018, Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies
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(2) Adopt a new philosophy The very survival of higher education depends on its ability to make this fundamental change. Every higher education system should continuously
look for new ways of upgrading
themselves so that many challenges like drop outs, poor quality education is met out and each and every one gets satisfied .In short, what was acceptable as 'standard procedure' in the nottoo-distant past is now no longer appropriate. (3) Cease dependence on inspection Quality of higher education cannot be improved if the aim of the institution is to keep on finding faults and wrong action of everyone involved in the systems. Gone are the days when inspection was only a way to rectify things. Instead nowadays everyone has to work as a team and help out each other to meet out the challenges lying in higher education in India (4) Minimize total cost It is absolutely not necessary to invest huge amount to meet out the challenges of infrastructure. Small but intelligent moves can meet the infrastructural challenges of higher education in India Finance is certainly a key ingredient for the development and maintenance of a quality educational system, it is naive to assume that quality is directly proportional to the number of money spent. Higher education professionals need to concentrate more on the long-term future of their programmers’ as opposed to expending inordinate amounts of time and resources dealing with relatively trivial matters.. (5) Improve constantly and forever Consistent effort for Improvement is not one time effort. No institution is good enough to retain its number one position forever. Higher education professionals must stay in touch with the rules, regulation and the stakeholders they serve. They must monitor their stake holders needs continually and offer that meet those needs both now and in the future. Nothing should be undertaken in the academic arena that does not add value to the overall enterprise. Challenges given by politics and bureaucracy must be kept away from educational institutions (6) Institute training More emphasis should be given on training of the human resources. Training faculty and staff can be very complicities, involved and even frustrating process. But if done, it can also be one of the most rewarding dimensions of work in higher education. Professional development should be the mandatory part of every higher education system because sound training forms Copyright Š 2018, Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies
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the basis for a successful college or university. To be truly effective, training must transcend these somewhat narrow parameters to broad horizon (7) Institute supervision It is important for higher authorities of education system to reinforce their team to enhanced quality through every aspect of their management style. Most experts agree that, in the future, organizational hierarchies will be much more horizontal than is currently the case at many colleges and universities. One logical result of this collapsing of the structure will be the empowerment of those at the lowest levels; i.e. those closest to the students. Supervising empowered employees is substantially different from dictating what is to be done centrally. This helps in facing the supply side quality and also helps to improve the quality of education delivered. (8) Drive out fear Every member of educational system should develop the feeling of belongingness. Many higher education professionals, in disguise of enhancing accountability, have instituted a comprehensive and endless array of evaluations: self evaluations, student evaluations, peer evaluations, supervisor evaluations, etc. The intended outcome of these assessments may indeed be to foster and maintain higher standards of commitment and quality. Good supervisors must learn to rely minimally on formalized evaluation schemes as a means of motivating staff and thus ensuring that departmental goals and objectives are appropriately met. (9) Break down barriers between departments Barriers breed sub optimization. It is important that inputs, process and outputs of educational system should communicate with each others in order to give desirable feedback. It is important to build up shared vision. At every level common objectives should be framed and everyone should strive hard to achieve them. (10) Eliminate unrealistic targets Unrealistic goals and targets should not be fixed though it sounds good to proclaim that '100% student satisfactions is our goal', in reality this is impossible to achieve. For instance, holding faculty responsible for the fact that all of their students will get above 80% is unfair and unrealistic. Recognition should be given for effort, not just results. If higher education professionals establish goals and objectives that are inherently unattainable, they are not, as they might think, motivating their staff members to be 'all they can be'. . Copyright Š 2018, Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies
Dr. Ritu Tripathi Chakravarty 10112 (Pg. 10107-10113)
(11) Eliminate numerical quotas Faculty and staff should be rewarded for performing at their own levels. No two persons should be judge on the basis of individual achievements. Process should be judges rather than the people like it is important to see the reason of dropout from institution rather than blaming teacher. What is lost in this process is the pursuit of quality and the intrinsic desire to continuously improve. (12) Abolish management by objectives It is important to allow everyone to take pride on everything done by them. On the surface, management by objectives (MBOs) seems like a good approach. MBOs can be helpful in establishing priorities and clarifying the various job functions that must be performed. MBOs are self-defeating in that they severely limit. Creativity by inhibiting employees from proceeding beyond the relatively narrow parameters they prescribe. (13) Institute a vigorous programme of re-education Higher education system should continuously identify their problematic areas and should continuously set up the objectives to rectify them .Faculty and students should continuously acquire new knowledge and skills in order to attain higher domains. If this type of mindset is developed them no doubt the challenges which are faced by higher education will be met out yielding positive results (14) Participation of Everyone Team is successful when every member of it is equal and participates in every activity no matter to which level it belongs. Instituting the Deming philosophy is not just the responsibility of the upper administration at a college or university, nor is it the primary concern of anyone group within the organization. It must be seen as everyone's responsibility. This means that everyone at the institution must have a clear understanding of the overall goals and objectives of Deming’s philosophy, as well as how those goals and objectives translate into concrete action. In order to make this connection, it is imperative that everyone works toward the same end. Conclusion The implications of Deming’s Philosophy are enormous. If challenges of higher education are to be met in right spirit a paradigm shift is needed. Deming provided solutions for continuous Copyright © 2018, Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies
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improvement and thousands of educational institutions across the world have started practicing it. Bibliography Edwards Deming, Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,MA, 1982 Deming. W. E. Out of the Crisis,2nd ed, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA,1986. Walton.M. The Deming Management Method, Putnam, New York, 1986. The planning commission of India. Higher Education in India: Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-2017) and beyond. Ernest and Young,London,2012
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