The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : A challenge for policy-makers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 24, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

A challenge for policy-makers

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, DEC. 23. A top education administrator has underlined the importance of marrying quality with wider access and greater affordability in higher education.

The central challenge for higher education policy is to improve its quality while simultaneously making it available to millions of people at costs they can easily afford, said V.S. Prasad, Director, National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), here on Thursday at a national seminar on `Best Practices in Teaching and Learning', organised by the Government College for Women, Begumpet.

"While the IITs and IIMs have managed to attain international quality, they are accessible only to a very small number of students. The difficulty comes when one attempts to maintain a reasonably high level of quality even when higher education is opened up for millions of students," he said.

While a fair number of institutions were found to be of world standard in the quality of their education, close to two thirds of the institutions assessed by NAAC had only managed average ratings. "The challenge is to raise the definition of average much higher than what it is at present," Prof. Prasad said.

Databank

The NAAC was building a databank of best practices in higher education in the country so that these could be shared and replicated according to local conditions. He called on Government college teachers to begin with adopting those best practices, which were not dependent on resources.

Earlier, the eminent educationist, C. Ramaiah, said that stress on quality should not lead to neglect of Government institutions. He recounted what he termed "the stellar contribution" of Government colleges to developing a highly educated and skilled leadership in the country in all fields. He added that it was necessary to make quality education accessible to the weaker sections of society. A. Sri Lakshmi, Principal, and M. Vanamala, convenor of the seminar also spoke.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh

News Update

Stories in this Section