A Study On Standards For Quality Assessment In Institutions Of Indian Higher Education In "the Twelfth Five Year Plan"

Assuring and improving the quality of higher education through assessment has been a main path for the quality assurance of higher education around the world. Standards, as the basis and foundation of the assessment of higher education quality, their design and modification have received widespread attention from country to country. During “the Eleventh Five Year Plan”, India’s national assessment and accreditation council(NAAC), responding to the new requirements that India’s industrialization, social and economical progress, and higher education reforms putting on higher education quality, integrated feedbacks and information from all sides, completed a revised version of Standards for quality assessment of higher education institutions(HEIs). In the opening year of the Twelfth Five Year Plan, i.e. 2012, the new Standards took into effect. The new Standards are an adapted and targeted renewal according to the current quality requirements of higher education and a forecast of the future development of higher education. This research, taking the formulation background of the new Standards as the breakthrough point, on the basis of a deep understanding of their core contents, analyzes their value orientations from three aspects——outside fitness, self fitness and inner fitness with the use of “the Value Theory of Public Policy” and then, explores their effects, experience and existing problems with the help of “the System View of Quality” and “the Gradual Policy-making Theory”. Finally, based on homogeneity judgments, puts forward references for the improvement of Index system for quality assessment in our nation’s undergraduate institutions.This research contains six parts:Part I: Formulation background of the Standards for quality assessment in institutions of Indian higher education in “the Twelfth Five Year Plan”. The author explores the deep-seated reasons for the formulation of the new Standards from four aspects, i.e. the process of industrialization, governments’ revolution and development policies on higher education, internationalization of higher education, and the existing problems of previous standards. Higher quality requirements that India’s rapid development of industrialization puts on higher education, the guidance of central and state governments’ higher education revolution and development policies, as well as the fast and deepening development of the internationalization of higher education are all important factors, while the former standards’ shortcomings like the lack of appropriate adaptation are the direct causes of the appearance of the new Standards.Part II: Core contents of the Standards for quality assessment in institutions of Indian higher education in “the Twelfth Five Year Plan”. The new Standards’ main contents include curriculum; teaching--learning and assessment; research, consultation and extension; infrastructure and learning resources; students support and progress; governance, leadership and management; and innovative practices. Each of them also contains 3-7 key aspects. Each standard and its key aspects have their own weight-ages due to the differentiated importance and the different characteristics and functions of different HEIs.Part III: Value orientations of the Standards for quality assessment in institutions of Indian higher education in “the Twelfth Five Year Plan”. Taking the Value Theory of Public Policy as the basis, and from the outside fitness, self-fitness and inner fitness, analyzes the new Standards’ prominent social-oriented features, the diversity and flexibility of judgment scales, and the people-oriented service concept, thus to show the new Standards’ values and pursuits of “ to be better outer and inner” and “ seize the macro, meso and micro all”.Part IV: Effects of the Standards for quality assessment in institutions of Indian higher education in “the Twelfth Five Year Plan”. This part will analyze the new Standards’ effects from the following aspects: implementation of quality assessment, over-all control of higher education quality, construct of internal quality assurance system, and stakeholder relationship. The results are: the implementation of quality assessment is more standardized and orderly, the observation of quality in HEIs is more comprehensive and systematic, the construction of internal quality assurance system in HEIs is more institutionalized and scientific, and various stakeholders can get known about the quality concept, quality characteristics and quality status of HEIs from the new Standards.Part V: Experience and existing problems of the Standards for quality assessment in institutions of Indian higher education in “the Twelfth Five Year Plan”. This part analyzes the experience from the gradual renewal, contents, implementation and its safeguarding measures of the Standards. Meanwhile, this part explores the existing problems from aspects, e.g. Standards in first assessment and re-assessments, features of distance and open education, international expectation on higher education and its quality, etc.Part VI: References of the Standards for quality assessment in institutions of Indian higher education in “the Twelfth Five Year Plan”. Based on a full analysis on the history and key problems of our nation’s index system for quality assessment of undergraduate institutions, taking into account the research achievement gained about the Standards for quality assessment in institutions of Indian higher education in “the Twelfth Five Year Plan” and under the homogeneity judgment, the author will put forward countermeasures and suggestions for the improvement of our nation’s index system for quality assessment of undergraduate institutions.