India has seen an enormous expansion of the higher education sector in the past couple of decades. Led mostly by strong private participation, this expansion has created enhanced educational opportunities for the nation’s youth.

This rapid and largely spontaneous growth has given birth to a huge gap in demand – supply equilibrium for academically and professionally qualified faculty and academic administrators. Most institutes of higher education in India today complain that it is very difficult to attract good faculty and even more difficult to retain them.

This excerpt from the preface of a recently published book titled Quality and Innovation in Higher Education articulates the problems faced by the higher education sector in India today.

Offering solutions, Dr. Hardik Vachhrajani, Assistant Professor at Amrita School of Business, Amritapuri, who co-authored the book, stated, “We wanted to bring out a volume that could be used as a reference guide for colleges and universities pursuing accreditation by NAAC and NBA and implementation of ISO 9000 guidelines.”

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) accredit and give ratings to Indian institutions of higher learning.

For example, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is accredited by the highest grade of A by NAAC.

The ISO 9000 family of standards published by the International Organization for Standardization relate to quality management and are used by millions of organizations worldwide, including universities and colleges.

The new book includes a collection of articles that shed light on the basics of quality management, quality in services industry, ISO 9001 in education and TQM in education.

Besides roadmap to innovation, national innovation system and role of universities, agro innovation systems and challenges for incubation of innovation in India are covered in detail.

“The new release is meant to be used as a handbook for people leading and participating in accreditation and quality enhancement initiatives as it covers various dimensions, practices and key aspects of quality and innovation in higher education,” Dr. Hardik underlined.

The book is available from all leading distributors across South Asia including India and can also be ordered directly from the publisher, Shree Niwas Publications, Jaipur.

On September 6, Dr. Hardik was invited by the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) of Shri M. D. Shah Mahila College of Arts and Sciences, Mumbai to share insights from the book.

The audience included educators from various educational institutes in Mumbai, IQAC members and student representatives. Some of the attendees had already read the newly published book.

Dr. Hardik shared that he is currently also working on an anthology of quality in higher education, featuring articles from authors from ten different countries.

Having nearly a decade of experience in consulting, training and researching in the fields of quality and innovation management in South East Asia, the Middle East and East Africa, Dr. Hardik is also the recipient of research grants from Swiss National Science Foundation and European Union.

October 8, 2011
School of Engineering, Amritapuri