The Brief Report on

How to Improve the Standard of Education of Universities in Maharashtra to face the Global Challenges in Higher and Technical Education?

This report suggests the open, flexible and transparent system of competitive nature to improve the standard of education of universities in Maharashtra to face the Global Challenges in Higher and Technical Education with inbuilt self regulating mechanism, which will increase accountability of all the stakeholders of the university and increase the employability of the students without discarding the existing organizing structure of the university.

By

Dr. Rajiv V. Dharaskar

Professor & Head, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, GH Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur-440016
Email: rvdharaskar@rediffmail.com, rvdharaskar@yahoo.com Mobile : 9881001589, 9422130930 Website : http://www.dharaskar.com Version 2.0

Introduction
Indias Higher education is the third largest in the world. If we could improve it up to mark then this will be a major source for expert manpower.

Recently Prof. Yashpal Sharma Committee report has pointed out major lacunae in the present system and suggested broadly few important changes. In response to this the Government of India has started Knowledge Commission and intends to merge all the regulatory bodies in to Knowledge Commission. The ministry of HRD is revamping the entire Indian education system. They have already initiated many steps like Regularizing the working of Deemed to be Universities Norms for Vice Chancellor selection process Norms for Ph.D. research process Declared the tenure for post of Principal only to be of 5 years

The Government of Maharashtra is interested in improving the standards of education in higher and technical education within existing framework. They have started changing the norms for various post like Vice Chancellor and interested to amend Maharashtra University Act 1994.

Since 1990, I am studying the working of more than 100 universities and well known institutes in India and abroad. I found that many universities and institutions have adopted innovative techniques to enhance the standard of education but this information is scattered and not properly documented. I would like to help the government machinery by introducing these techniques for improving standard of education.

After studying all the reports available at website of Knowledge Commission, Professor Yashpal Committee Reports etc., I found that, everybody has rightly pointed out most of the lacunae in the system. I think that this is not enough. The think tanks of India should come up with full length solutions along with problems. This report is an attempt towards

this direction. This is the first version of the report. Lot of brain storming with academic community is required for final version. I would to like update it periodically and the updated version will be available at my website till we achieve the goals.

Present Scenario

As per various committee reports, the present status of Higher and Technical Education System is unable to fulfill many expectations and demands. The major issues are

Employability Very Low student employability

Syllabus Unable to update course contents regularly Poor hands on experience. Stress on theoretical training. It should be skill oriented. Examination System Examination mechanism tests the theoretical background and not the skill sets Widening the gap between educational institutes and industry

Teaching Poor teaching quality Lack of qualified and expert teaching faculty Continuous testing of teachers ability. It should not be degree based. It should be real time contribution based. No parameter indexing system for measuring and evaluating teaching skills and teachers contributions. Many times the bio-data does not speak the truth and could not paint a true picture. The examination like GATE is necessary while appointing any teacher at any level. Role of Academic staff colleges for over all teacher knowledge development is unsatisfactory. Unable to take advantage of Latest ICT and Learning Technology based elearning technologies to improve the teaching-learning process.

Alumnae Lack of initiative to involve alumnae. Its a one of the main sources of funding in developed countries. University Distance between University and its affiliated colleges is day by day widening. The teachers of affiliated colleges are unaware of university level activities. University teachers never participate for development of affiliated colleges. Universities do not have departments like Engineering and Medicine. They should have model departments in each faculty. So that the other affiliated colleges can treat them as role model. Lack of inter disciplinary courses Lack of inter disciplinary collaboration Lack of collaboration between Universities and IIT / IIM / National Laboratories Lack of collaboration with world class universities Focus on mass education without maintaining quality Very low UG-PG ratio. In developed countries it is 40:60 Large size of Universities results in inefficient University system System is not in the hands of Academician. The election process encourage the academic politicians to occupy higher academic positions. Loosing confidence of common man on the system University has become only degree granting and examination conducting authority like State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education. No university ranking system is available. Colleges are not willing to face accreditation process. University, DTE, UGC and AICTE are simultaneously controlling professional colleges like engineering colleges, which creates lot of administrative problems confusion and mismanagement. Research Quality Research is missing Universities should be known by major thrust research areas

The university should meet the expectations of its various stakeholders. Universities are not professionally managed. Its organizing pattern should change with changing environment.

Steps to Improve the Standard

If we want to improve todays Indian University Environment then the probable important and urgent steps are:

1. Modify the Syllabus at par with latest trends 2. Teachers Training and service conditions 3. Improve the Efficiency of System without Modifying Organizing Structure 4. Web Enable Monitoring, Feedback and Benchmarking System to improve the Teaching-learning process 5. Latest Learning technologies to improve teaching-learning Mechanism 6. Modify the existing examination system (Online & Flexible) 7. Strengthening the research environment

1. Modify the Syllabus at par with latest trends

The employability of the students is the major issue for Indian universities. It depends upon the structure of the curriculum and syllabus. This issue is very vital and sensitive. Entire future of the student community depends upon decisions and direction of the Board of Studies and in turn Academic Council. In some universities the university ordinance does not allow to change the syllabus and scheme of examination before three years because of the pattern of examination system. In the field of computer or electronics the absolution rate is very high. University must update the syllabus after every six months or one year. It should be continuous process.

The Hon. Vice Chancellor of one of the regular state university has tried to improve the standards of the syllabus. Not a single faculty (arts, commerce, science, Law etc) has

responded except engineering faculty. The Engineering faculty has updated around 20% contents of the syllabus. Remember that even after improving standard of the syllabus the overall standard may not be improved. The reasons behind the resistance for updation of syllabus are The Dean of the Faculty is appointed through the election process. He is interested in safeguarding the interests of the voters. The voters are representing the teaching community. Thus these voters are more interested in safeguarding the interest of the teaching community. The teaching community is reluctant to modify the syllabus to avoid extra efforts for teaching. That is why, the dean never act as per instructions from higher authorities of the University regarding updation of syllabus. The management of affiliated colleges normally appoints less qualified and fresh teachers to reduce the salary burden. These teachers do not have teaching experience. They do not know any thing about pedagogy. Even if we introduce standard syllabus they wound not be in a position to give justice to the subject. The teacher community is reluctant to face the teaching challenges of standard syllabus. The students never choose the difficult elective subjects. For advanced or latest elective subjects the teaching faculty is not available. Thus even the scheme of examination offers variety of subjects the response from the student is almost negligible. The managements of affiliated colleges are interested to manage the show economically. Thus instead of opting all the elective subjects they prefer only one from the list of optional subjects to reduce the manpower requirement. The present examination system permits the students for maximum 6 attempts to pass the examination. That is why for 3 year degree course, the life of scheme of examination is 6 years. This pattern of examination scheme is major hurdle for updation of the syllabus. To implements these type of changes the vice chancellors should convince the deans and chairmen as well as members of the board of studies. The strong motivator as well as an

able leader is needed to pursue this matter. It is difficult task to convince all the deans of the faculties and more than 80 chairmen. It is a time consuming mechanism. To meet the global challenges some other mechanism is needed.

Maharashtra Level Subject Committees

In the developed countries many universities have joined the hands together to update the syllabus. They organize joint meetings and the details of the each meeting are available at websites. Its a continuous and transparent process. In the similar fashion, all the universities in Maharashtra should form the subject committees for every subject. There job will be Update the syllabus throughout the state. It should not be handled by local universities. The Maharashtra level committee should check syllabus of selected top hundred universitys of the world before finalizing state syllabus. To do this job effectively the subjects and syllabus of all the universities in Maharashtra should be same. In addition to this the Maharashtra level subject committee should decide the beyond syllabus contents for introducing latest trends in industry to reduce the industry-institute gap. To increase the employability of the students there is a need of hands on training of the latest subjects. The syllabus of many universities in Maharashtra shows that this issue is handle very carelessly. The statement like Practical based on above syllabus is found in many syllabus. Normally subject teacher of the universities of developed countries carefully suggests the latest technology, techniques, tools and instruments to teach each practical. Thus Maharashtra level subject committee should finalize this issue and they should meet minimum once in a month to suggest six monthly final changes. They should specify the details of practicals to perform as well as suggestions for covering practical on beyond syllabus to cover latest technologies.

They should maintain the multiple choice question bank for each subject. This question bank will be useful for standard monitoring process. The multiple choice question can be arranged in categories like o Theory related to syllabus o Practical knowledge and skills o Topics from Beyond syllabus o Latest trends

They should provide the standard Power Point Presentation (PPT) for each subject based on common syllabus. Each PPT will be divided in to 40 parts to cover 40 hours of lectures.

They should provide the list of standard text / reference books as well as list of different web resources available for the subject.

Note that, the Academic calendar of all the universities should be same for synchronization of the activities of Maharashtra level subject committees and universities. The affiliated colleges are allowing the campus recruitment throughout the year which disturbs the teaching schedule. The exam dates of GATE, CAT etc should not be in the month of Feb. It is found that students of engineering faculty bunk the classes for more than 15 days and disturb the academic calendar of the year.

2. Teachers Training and service conditions

The University authorities will provide continuous training facilities To newly appointed Teachers: In the first three years university should provide compulsory training of pedagogy in the every summer and winter vacation. For Elective or difficult subjects: The University will arrange STTP courses for elective or difficult subjects where performance indicator TIP-T is low for majority of affiliated institutes of that university.

In IISC, Banglore the appointment of the teacher is only for 5 years. In most of the foreign universities the appointment of the teacher is on contract basis and can be

renewed on the basis of performance. The university teachers of the developed countries get the substantial income from R&D projects from industry or other agencies.

In India, the permanent appointment of the teacher is the main cause of degradation of the education. The government should start online subject examination for continuation of service of the teacher. The teachers appointment should be only for 5 years. After that he should face minimum 3 subject examinations of his choice for continuing his post. This will force the teacher to update his knowledge. This process will improve the teaching drastically.

3. Improve the Efficiency of System without Modifying Organizing Structure

The universities in developed countries have adopted very simple organizing structure i.e. President, Vice-Presidents and subordinates staff plus Senate. Most of them are private universities. These Private universities have occupied positions in the list of Top 100 universities of the world.

The Indian universities are controlled by local academicians whereas the top ranking foreign universities are controlled by top level academicians of the world. Thus the decision making process of Indian universities is hampered.

The Government of Maharashtra is interested to amend the Maharashtra University Act 1994 and interested to introduce more stringent rules to improve the academic standards and employability of the students. The first step in this direction is the modified norms for the post of VC. The Indian Universities have adopted self regulating mechanism. All bodies are cross checking each other activities. The government is interested to change the norms without modifying existing organizing structure of the universities.

The advantages of this mechanism are avoids misuse of power by authorities or bodies

reduce the corrupt practices increase the trust of the common man on the system by involving members of various sections of the society every issue is handled in democratic way Maintain the steady and self regulating structure which is most suitable for Indian democratic environment To manage large Indian universities (3 to 4 lacks students and more than 500 affiliated colleges) alternative mechanism should be developed.

The disadvantages of this mechanism are Very slow response for adopting latest trends in the education system Works in democratic way and dominated by local persons (sometimes nonacademicians) thus unable to meet the global challenges Groupism dominate the decision making process.

Because of advantages of the present system the Government can not drastically modify the organizing structure of the system. The Government can change the eligibility criterion for authorities and members of various bodies of the universities. Scarcity of eligible candidates is the major obstacle for this policy. Moreover most of the authorities and members are coming through election process and thus groupism can not be avoided. This scenario always slow down the decision making process. Its a major hurdle for facing the challenges of globalization.

The government authorities can do the following things to improve the performance of the present organization system. Identify time consuming process. Reduce the number of cross checks by the different bodies to make the system efficient. For example, o One university could not conduct the meeting of RRC for one and half year. For any technical reason this can not be justified. Identify cost consuming processes. Try to find cost effective advanced technologies to reduce the expenditure of the university. For example,

o The Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) Hyderabad has used internet technology to distribute question papers of university examination to affiliated colleges and saved money. Identify problematic processes (which irritate the stakeholders). Try to find alternative ways to make them efficient. For example, o In SGB Amravati University, in teacher selection process, after the interview the teacher gets the approval letter within 15 days. In some universities more than one year is required to get the approval letter. o Universities must implement the client oriented system. If the student needs any genuine information or certificate from the university then he should get it instantly. In the present system the attitude is very lethargic. It should be replaced by integrated web based solutions. To remove politics from BOS and for post of Dean, the post should be on rotation basis. The teaching parameter index, research index, qualification should be considered for appointing person to these post. Integrated University Software: Government should take the initiative to develop the software for each section of the University to make the system more efficient and reliable. Government should supply these softwares to each university, implement them compulsorily and monitor the performance. Maharashtra University of Health Sciences Nashik displays the mark sheet at the time of declaration of the result at their website. Its a good attempt to satisfy the needs of most important stakeholder of the university namely students. University must provide web enable online facilities like o University Examination Form filling o Enrolment number allotment o Result and Mark list o Prospects o All ordinances and status o Syllabus o Approval of teacher o Revaluation application and form submission

o Online Inquiry: The response time should be at the most 24 hours. In UK if you send the inquiry by email to any university then within seconds we get the response by Artificial Intelligence based answering system. Then within 2 hours you will get manual detail reply and then three sets of brochures within 15 days. If the top authorities of the university do not know the latest computing technologies then they can spoil the name of the university and misuse the technology unknowingly. For example o Some universitys website damage the image of university The government has given the space to them on digitaluniversity but most of the universities could not maintain their respective sites. o One of the Universities in Maharashtra provides the confidential information of university examination through Yahoo Groups. o Few universities have displayed the photographs of VC at front page of university website. Its not the way. Government must issue guidelines and develop model integrated website. All university should follow the structure of that standard website.

4. Web-Enable Monitoring, Feedback and Benchmarking System to Improve the Teaching-Learning Process
To improve the standards of academic environment of democratically managed Indian universities the strict vigilance is necessary. Simply imposing the rules and regulations through government agencies may not change the environment. The can improve the performance.

Web-Enable Transparent Feedback and Monitoring System (WETFMS)

I would like to suggest an innovative way to check, monitor and improve the university system with the help of web-enable transparent feedback and monitoring system (WETFMS). It will use different stakeholders for monitoring and controlling the system.

The Government will take initiative to develop and provide a common portal to all the universities. Each University System Manager will be controlling authority of that university. It will contain Input modules for teacher and students to cross check the teaching-learning process 17 modules for different stakeholders for monitoring and enhancing teaching process o Institute Level: 04 o University Level: 8 o Government Level:3 o Open System:2 totally transparent and accessible to everybody in the society

Teaching Performance Indicator for Teacher (TPI-T)

Based on feedback of the student the WETFMS will automatically generate the performance indicator TPI-T for individual teacher at the end of the year, which will reflect the teaching ability of the teacher.

Teaching Learning Transparent Performance Indicator for Institute (TPI-I)

Based on feedback of the student the WETFMS will automatically generate the performance indicator TPI-I for institute at the end of the year, which will reflect the overall teaching performance of the institute.

This WETFMS should collect Teachers performance o students attendance of every class o details of syllabus covered in the class

o Weekly test results of the each subject. To maintain the quality, these test should be conducted with the help of multiple choice question banks developed by the university or Maharashtra level subject committee o authenticated by heads of the department o authenticated by the head of the institute Students Feedback o Periodically, every student should confidentially verify the data provided by teacher regarding coverage of syllabus and attendance (approximate figure plus minus ten) through web enable softwares. For doing this every student will be provided separate username and password for accessing the feedback form on the portal. o Remark about effectiveness of the teaching Institute Level Stakeholder 01: Parents o They can watch the progress on daily, weakly, monthly and yearly basis. For poor performance they will have to contact college authorities. They will be getting information regarding corrective actions and plans of different authorities. o Can send confidential report to university Institute Level Stakeholder 02: HOD o They should monitor the efficiency of the system o Specify the corrective mechanism to rectify the system and implement it. Institute Level Stakeholder 03: Principal o They should monitor the efficiency of the system o Specify broadly the corrective mechanism to rectify the system Institute Level Stakeholder 04: Management of Affiliated College o They should check the efficiency of the system o Specify the corrective mechanism to rectify the system University Level Stakeholder 05: Board of Studies o The system should report monthly performance and problems to BOS

o They should identify the students and teachers problems in teachinglearning mechanism for particular affiliated college as well for entire discipline. o They should rectify the problems every month o The affiliated college teachers should submit the multiple choice questions in electronic form of the respective subjects to the BOS. The BOS will maintain the question bank. They should provide the updated version of multiple-choice question bank in electronic form to the University Librarian on 25 of every month. University Level Stakeholder 06: Dean of respective Faculty o He will be responsible for overall performance and efficiency of the respective faculty of the university University Level Stakeholder 07: Academic Council o They should be responsible for overall performance of all the faculties.

University Level Stakeholder 08: Management Council o They should remove the administrative difficulties in implementing WETFMS and Help to improve the system

University Level Stakeholder 9: Chief Librarian o He must check the availability of appropriate teaching material to all affiliated colleges and university departments o He should collect the updated version of multiple choice question bank from BOS every month and forward it to Maharashtra level respective Subject Committees with the help of System Manager of the university.

University Level Stakeholder 10: Director, BCUD o He should provide the information about availability of funds for establishing infrastructure to improve the teaching learning process and for implementation of WETFMS.

University Level Stakeholder 11: Pro-Vice Chancellor o He should be held responsible for the standards of the examination and test mechanism

University Level Stakeholder 12: Vice Chancellor

o He should maintain strict vigilance on enter system through WETFMS o He should initiate strict actions on defaulters Government Level Stakeholder 13: Director of Technical Education of Maharashtra o Keep the watch on the system and submit the report to the Government. Government Level Stakeholder 14: Maharashtra Level Subject Committees o They will monitor problems faced by teacher and students for particular syllabus and reports from all other stakeholders. They will take appropriate action while updating the syllabus. o They should maintain the multiple choice question bank and periodically update it. Government Level Stakeholder 15: Hon. Governors Office o Appropriate measures to improve the performance Open System Stakeholder 16: Common Man o Since the WETFMS is transparent to common man, it will help to build up or damage the pubic image of all stakeholders. It will build substantial pressure to improve the system. It will help to improve the accountability of the Stakeholders and system. It will be a self regulating mechanism. Open System Stakeholder 17: Press and TV Reporters o The press should be free to publish the statistics and reports (good as well as bad) about Teachers Defaulter Management of affiliated colleges University observations, actions and vigilance

The automatically generated transparent performance indicator will make the system accountable. Teachers will try to obtain the better performance indicator for getting good job or promotion. The management of affiliated colleges will also try sincerely to get good teaching overall performance indicator. Initially this system may provide the manipulated data. The student feedback mechanism will expose these frauds. Slowly this mechanism will drastically improve the teaching- learning mechanism.

5. Latest Learning technologies to Improve Teaching-Learning Mechanism

I have spent more than one decade for R&D activities related to Learning Technologies. The e-learning and Learning Technologies are very helpful for improving the standards of the education system of such a large country with full of diversities. The HRD ministry has started the new venture namely National Mission on Education through Information & Communication Technology (NMEICT) and has sanction Rs. 4600 crores for development of this innovative field. The WETFMS can identify the good teachers in entire university on the basis of the students feedback. This expert manpower can be utilized for strengthening the NMEIC activities. The WETFMS can help to group the expert teachers of same subject from all over the Maharashtra. It can help for enhancing the teaching-learning process and research with the help of Developing Audio-video lectures like NPTEL Establishing virtual laboratories Organize competitions for developing teaching aids for particular subject Collaborative activities among the subject teachers Joint research projects

Since 1995, every computer department of universities of developed countries has started specialized courses on Learning Technologies. Thus lots of learning technologists are available with them to develop content for e-learning system. In India, we could not take initiative till year 2000. There is a need to start National Learning Technology Institute / Laboratory like National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur to create specialized manpower to develop this field.

Because of Knowledge Explosion the e-learning based efficient teaching techniques are required to reduce the teaching time of the concepts; So that more syllabus can be covered in one hour of classroom teaching.

The video recording of lectures is very common practice in the universities of developed countries. Now a day it is not the costly affair. Thus lecturers should be recorded and should be made available to student who could not attend the classes.

Most of the top authorities of the universities are unable to understand the complex technology for implementing, developing and introducing the e-learning softwares to university departments and affiliated colleges. To meet the global challenges the VC should be well aware about these technologies. The Vice Chancellor with computer background can understand and implement e-learning technologies more effectively.

6. Modify the Existing Examination System

Todays internet world is boosting the knowledge explosion. The age old pattern of examination system is unable to cope up with this situation. Present system of examination tests only the theoretical knowledge. The reliability of the valuation system is always doubtful because of volume of work. There is no continuous evaluation system. Moreover, the present examination system consume 30% time (2 months preparation, 2 months for examination and vacation) of the 3 or 4 year degree course. If you can reduce the examination time to 15% then this precious period can be utilize for better teaching and industry oriented training.

In my opinion, we should reduce the examination pressure of Indian Universities by introducing continuous flexible evaluation process. Already in Andhra Pradesh online Sessional examination system has been introduced by JNTU. We should use the online examination like GRE, GATE for continuous evaluation system. The Maharashtra level subject committees should develop the multiple choice question banks and they should conduct every fortnightly the online exams on specified part of the syllabus. This score can be useful for evaluation student as well as teachers performance. The total subject score will be addition of Maharashtra Level Multiple Choice Online Examination: score (50% marks) Institute Level Internal Sessional Examination: score (15% marks)

University Level Semester / Annual Examination: score (35% marks)

Independent passing will be required in all three categories. In addition to this, the final mark sheet will display online test result CGPA and university exam CGPA separately. This will help the industry to select proper candidates and increase the employability.

This scheme will Reduce the 50% load on university examination system Develop more trust on evaluation process conducted by two separate agencies Universities can concentrate on teaching and research activities

In addition to this, if possible, like GATE, the result of the examination should be on based on Percentile and not on percentage because percentile system automatically shows the approximate ranking of the student.

In the present scheme of examination of engineering faculty, the core subjects appear in the final year of four year degree courses. The four year engineering degree courses should adopt following guideline while designing the scheme of examination First Year: Basic General Engineering Subjects Second and Third Year: Core Engineering Subjects Final Year: Specialization Subjects

Then in real sense the students can understand and implement latest industry oriented technologies, which will increase the employability.

Eighty present engineering students have stopped referring text or reference books for preparing for examination. They are using Fast Food type books to pass the examination. Everybody knows this and nobody is coming forward to stop this unhealthy practice. Its a very serious matter.

Most of the Question paper setters set the paper within one day. They are just using previous year papers and Fast Food type books. Its just the permutation combination

of the question of the previous years papers. Thus the change of examination system is must to improve the standard of education system.

Most of the universities of developed countries have abolished the Practical Record book concept. It has been replaced by heavy assignments. If necessary, students upload the code to intranet site. In India, 10% time of the students is devoted for this activity.

The Practical and Project examination system need modification. We should use NCST, Mumbai style. In Practical examination, 50% marks should be for actual practical and 50% for multiple choice question from online question bank.

Credit Points and Interdisciplinary Subjects

The VNIT, Nagpur has developed good system for interdisciplinary subjects. The students from various departments can choose the interdisciplinary subject based on credit points.

Tri Semester System

Three semesters per year structure may help to improve the standard of education. This is possible because faster teaching techniques with the help of modern technologies. The IsquareIT, Pune has successfully implemented the Tri-Semester initiated by Padmashri Dr. Vijay Bhatkar.

Always expert teachers of specialized subjects are not available in any one university. The joint ventures of universities can be very helpful to start very advanced level courses. For example, in the ERASMUS MUNDUS program the leading Universities like University of Reading (UoR) in UK, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) in Greece and University Carlos III Madrid (UC3M) in Spain have jointly started highly specialized postgraduate programs of three semesters on Network and e-Business Centered Computing, where the student will complete one semester from each

university. In India, the University and IIT should take initiative to organize at least one semester specialized courses for students of different affiliated colleges. The third semester should be reserve for these type of specialize semester at IIT / University campus. This will help to increase the employability of the students.

7. Strengthening the Research Environment

To research and teaching are tightly coupled with each other. They are directly proportional to each other. Strengthening the research activities automatically increase the knowledge base of the teacher and in turn improves the teaching. But research can not be improved without improving teaching standards. Once the teaching standards increases with the help of techniques like WETFMS automatically it will boost the research activities.

The R&D needs huge funding. For Indian Universities its a Luxury affair. In India, the government agencies are the only primary source of funding. The universities should not be dependent upon this single source of funding. If the universities could establish the well equipped R&D centers of excellence in industrial oriented thrust research areas then they can attract the funding from industry. The research activities will boost the name of the university in world and helps to attract funding from alumnae.

Industry Oriented Research Activities

Research activities in the University environment is mainly focusing for acquiring Ph.D. degree. The research ends the moment candidate gets his Ph.D. degree. No university is involved in the industry oriented continuous research activities. The universities should focus in the direction to reduce the institute-industry gap.

RPI-I and RPI-U

There should be Research parameter index for each institute (RPI-I) and each university (RPI-U) based on Research funding Research papers in journals as well as in conference Patents Research Laboratories Established Center of Excellence R&D centers Number of Ph.D. (awarded and ongoing) Number of Ph.D. guides Research Awards and Achievements

Almost every university in UK published Brochure of the University. Just sent the email and you will get decent copy of the brochure within 4 days. The Indian Universities must published Brochure List of Research publication of university and affiliated colleges Research contribution List of funding projects from university and industry Research ranking of university and affiliated colleges List of achievers and prominent researchers

Monitoring System

All the IITs have developed very close research monitoring software systems for full time research scholars. The data of every day research work is available at intranet. Thus research throughput is very high at all the IIT. In university environment no such systems are available. The research parameter like RPI-I or RPI-U will be very useful for monitoring the university research activities.

Lack of Initiative

In most of the universities, the Ph.D. candidate visits the universities only for registration process and for submission of thesis. The role of Research Recognition Committee (RRC) is for Ph.D. registration process and for the appointment of the Ph.D. examiners. They never involve in six monthly evaluation processes. Even universities are not conducting six monthly progress seminars. In IIT, the research supervising committee continuously monitors the progress of research. For better research outcome the universities should establish well equipped research centers.

In the field of computer engineering the situation is shameful. In most of the universities in Maharashtra the guide and research centers are not available, neither at university campus nor at affiliated colleges. No candidate can register for Ph.D. because of unavailability of approved research center.

The new UGC GR (9 June 2009) has little bit changed the scenario. But for real outcome some strict measures are required.

Check on Conference

There is no check on National / International Conference in India arranged by affiliated colleges and universities. They are including non-standard research papers for just getting registration fees. Sometimes more than 60% papers are useless. The top authorities of education field are inaugurating these conferences. Somewhere university must interfere and check the system. University authoritys certification should be made compulsory before finalizing the proceedings of the conference of affiliated colleges. In addition to this, there should be strict monitoring of the government funding process of conference and research projects.

Library and Computer Center

The Library and Computer Center should be open for minimum 16 hours. The affiliated colleges normally open it from 10.30 to 5.30. In Metros the colleges are sometime 30 to

45 km away from the city thus after college hours nobody like to stay at institute. Thus they should open Library and Computer Center in the city at some approachable location.

Summary

I hope, the suggestions in this report help us to move from age old system to new dynamic system to meet the challenges of globalization. While suggesting the mechanisms the smooth selling was the pivotal point. The report has highlighted the following important concepts Identified important Steps for up gradation of standard Mechanism for continuous Syllabus updation process Maharashtra level subject committee and their duties Mechanism for teachers training Mechanism for Continuous evaluation process of subject Teachers Without changing existing university structure how to enhance the system by process enhancement Integrated University Software Transparent monitoring software WETFMS Performance index TPI-T and TPI-I Efficient use of e-learning Online examination system for continuous monitoring Research parameter index RPI-I and RPI-U Research monitoring software system Stress on Industry oriented research Need of strict standards for Research

The secret of their success of top ranking foreign universities is Quality Education. The quality education is tightly coupled with research. The research depends upon standard of teaching and UG-PG ratio. Normally it is 40:60 in developed countries. High quality research attracts funding from industry, alumnae and government. The higher percentage

of PG students helps a lot for improving teaching standards and education atmosphere of the academic organization. The funding helps to modernize the R&D infrastructure and to keep good salary structure to attract the experts from all over the world. This is a cyclic process. Every factor depends upon other. Thus in-depth strategic planning and well defined step by step approach is needed to meet the global challenges.