Volume No.1, Issue No.1. Page No: 52-57, JULY - 2015 JJM-001-2015 ENGINEERING EDUCATION: INNOVATION AND INTEGRATION THROUGH TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT Veeranna.D.Kenchakkanavar 1, Anand.K.Joshi 2 1 Asso.Professor, Shaikh College of Engineering and Technology, Belgaum-591156, Karnataka, India 1 Email.ID: vdkmtech@gmail.com 2 Vice Chancellor, CMR University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India Abstract Organizations are dynamic entities in a social milieu. They undergo changes in structure, culture, values, systems and beliefs continuously. The expectations of the customers who take services from organizations vary from customer to customer and from time to time. To meet these varying expectations of the customers, an overall effort is always required. Total Quality Management (TQM) plays a major role in bringing such change. TQM is a collaborative system. It can be conceptualized as a network of process and activities through which various people in the organization can see different aspects of a problem and can constructively explore their differences and search for continuous improvement that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible. TQM thus is an interdepartmental and inter organizational effort to address problems of improvement. This paper formulates the necessity of TQM in engineering education and reveals the systematic approach in the form of case study to support the claim. Keywords: Education, Quality, change Introduction According to Johnson (1996) the issues of engineering education were time variant. Engineering graduates were seen to be lacking the attributes, skills and knowledge necessary for the high level of innovation, the management of technology, human resources in the production of goods and services, as well as the entrepreneurial skills necessary in the commercial world. A survey in Australia of employers to determine employers perceptions of engineering graduates from Australian universities proved that they lacked an adequate knowledge and skills essential to meet the future needs of the engineering workforce. Shortcomings in engineering practice were identified in the areas of innovation, research and development, design and technical improvisation. The basic observable component of a technical institute are shown in Figure 1 (Patil,V.H, 2006). These are the key elements of any engineering education organization. With continuous growth of population over the years, basic needs to support this growth 52
Volume No.1, Issue No.1. Page No: 52-57, JULY - 2015 have significantly gone up both in terms of quantity and quality. Large scale industrialization was needed to be brought into existence requiring large number of technical manpower. At the time of independence in 1947, India hardly had an industrial base and technically trained manpower to handle the task of nation building. Soon after independence, many large projects were launched to meet the needs of irrigation, flood control, power, steel, machine tools, fertilizer, transportation, petrochemical, textile, drug and pharmaceuticals etc.main problem in implementation of these projects was acute shortage of trained technical manpower. Therefore, the ambitious program of expansion of technical education was undertaken to meet the shortage of skilled workers, supervisory manpower and professionals who could perform functions such as design, planning, production, maintenance and management etc., in various fields. The new economic order and globalization of the market place in India have opened doors for the international companies to participate in the economic activities of the country. Although engineering education received much attention in India ever since independence, only during last three decades, it has expanded remarkably, which is indicated by rapid increase in number of engineering institutions, massive increase in the students admissions, increase in number of engineering disciplines and launching of PG programs in various disciplines. Nowadays, the institutions perform well but they cannot get better results as they do not follow quality strategy. Quality of the student is impossible without the quality of the institution. So they must focus on quality of the process. But excellence in engineering institution is not an easy task. This can be achieved through implementation of TQM concept in educational institution (A. Pal Pandi, 2007). The implementation of TQM challenges the traditional teaching practices. It involves change not only in teaching methodology but also in administration and culture; before going for TQM, it is mandatory to examine culture, ethics, management style and organization structure of the institution; to find out pitfalls of the existing culture and try to remove it. Many institutions are conducting development programme to enhance quality awareness and change the attitudes of their employees. These efforts are towards understanding, adopting and promoting TQM. Objectives of the Hour Technical education has a pivotal role to play in shaping the social and economic status of a nation. The present scenario in this field is not all that rosy. The mushroom growth of technical institutes relying heavily on the gorgeous infrastructures is not the real growth by any standard. Many such institutes have come up to gobble the unaccounted money of the aspirants who have to be admitted on the management quota. In such a case merit is sacrificed, be misfits in the global competitive market. 53
Data management Faculty Infrastructure Vision and leadership Educational institute Research Project activities Industry interaction Technical curriculum Learning community Training Figure 1.Educational System Model Much good has not been achieved as a mere result that is pass percentage is connected to show on records the progress of an institute. Accreditation and grades nowhere match when one sees the reality. The candidates have no communicative abilities. The multinational companies recruit the best in the field and the nonmeritorious are ignored. The challenges have not been handled competitively by many technical institutes. They have failed to answer the ever increasing problems. An attempt has been made here to trace out the lapses in effectively handling the challenges. Quality cannot be achieved without fulfilling the required standard. A thorough study is taken up here to present the actual status and suggestions too are given to improve the qualitative management of the problems and challenges. An Attempt to Reveal the Facts India has one of the largest systems of post secondary science, engineering and technical education in the world. The discovery of Indian talent by employers around the world has laid to a global competition for Indian talent. As a consequence, human resource is emerging as one of the most serious constraints to economic growth of India as well. The higher education system of India is struggling to meet the new expectation.c.b.suresh et al (2010) points out that, the most important issue facing engineering education sector is the improvement in pursuit of quality education. Since the world is changing 54
very fast, Indian education sector does not have a choice. It must change with the world. Srinivas.V and A.Ratnakar (2007) found out that, as the number of engineering colleges is increasing at a faster rate in the country, the meaning of quality of technical education has also been redefined. In addition to quality, commitment of students and faculty for the benefit of national growth has also to be inculcated. Tang Y. S. (2002) found out that, a high quality engineering education must be an inclusive one, in which the education process is integrated with research, and enabled by new technology based teaching and learning techniques, Industry and university interaction. Here an attempt has been made to know the quality of the technical institutes in the Karnataka state by sample survey method. The questionnaire is prepared and responses were collected from the 37 engineering colleges in the state. Based on the responses the analysis is made to know the significance of the parameters which will influence the quality. The Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) comprises four zones namely the Bangalore, Mysore, Belgaum and Gulbarga zones. The questions were framed on physical, academic and intellectual parameters. The student were asked about 20 questions to rate Excellent to Poor in five point scale and responses were collected and analyzed by ANNOVA and presented in the Table1.Based on the P value (< 0.05) the Fish bone diagram is drawn to know the parameters which influence the quality of engineering education. Discussion The question number two (02) is concerned with the transport arrangement for the students, three (03) is concerned with the health and safety measures, four (04) is concerned with the facilities in the hostel for boys/girls, five (05) is concerned with the alumni (passed out students) meet in the college, six (06) is concerned with the availability range of leisure, recreation and sporting facilities, eight (08) is concerned with the opportunities for the students to organize their own activities through student s professional chapters and forums, eleven Table 1: Comparison of aided, unaided and government college students in each item by Kruskal Wallis ANOVA(11) is concerned with the training and placement activities in the campus, twelve (12) is concerned with the initiatives for inter colligate activities, extracurricular, personality development and industry-institute interaction, fourteen (14) is concerned with the class rooms / laboratories layouts for learning programmes to the students, fifteen (15) is concerned with the services like studentacademic counseling, guidance and mentoring services, sixteen (16) is concerned with the open access of internet, computers and library facilities to the student, seventeen (17) is concerned with the Scholarships and financial assistance to poor and needy, eighteen (18) is concerned with the variety of learning modes available to meet learner s needs. 55
Q. No. Total H-value p-value 1 3.94 3.1810 0.3650 2 3.41 18.8630 0.0000* 3 3.12 16.4660 0.0010* 4 3.25 12.9960 0.0050* 5 3.04 27.0580 0.0000* 6 3.51 12.9760 0.0050* 7 3.78 4.4860 0.2140 8 3.68 10.7780 0.0130* 9 4.15 3.2090 0.3610 10 3.77 6.6190 0.0850 11 2.96 18.3700 0.0000* 12 3.26 27.5700 0.0000* 13 2.61 4.9820 0.1730 14 3.73 18.1830 0.0000* 15 3.59 15.0670 0.0020* 16 3.69 36.2020 0.0000* 17 3.64 9.8560 0.0200* 18 3.62 14.0690 0.0030* 19 3.84 2.2690 0.5180 20 3.99 7.2840 0.0630 Table 1: Comparison of aided, unaided and government college students in each item by Kruskal Wallis ANOVA (11) Integration of TQM The role TQM can be explained with the help of the Fish Bone Diagram, the quality of the technical education is dependent on three parameters namely Physical.The physical parameters comprises class room, hostel, health care, transport,hostel, leisure and recreation facilities in the campus. The academic parameters comprise training and placement, teaching learn ring, and alumni meet, counseling and guidance. The intellectual parameters comprise leadership opportunity, variety of learning modes etc. 56
Physical Parameters Academic Parameters Quality in Technical Education Intellectual Parameters Scope of the Study The study reveals that the need of the quality in technical education and opened the road map for improvement. The integration of innovation along with the conventional teaching learning makes the technical education step up to the next higher level. Conclusion Quality is not a one point agenda and one time affair it is a continuous and needs every scope for improvement. As we know the TQM has become an important management paradigm that enhances the References 1. Johnson Changing the culture: engineering education in to the future, Barton Act: Institution of Engineering Australia, 1996. 2. Patil, V.H., Kamlapur, S.M. and Dhore, M.L. Six Sigma in Education: To Achieve Overall Excellence in the Field of Education, ITNG 2006. Proceeding by IEEE Computer Society, pp. 2-5, 2006. 3. Pal Pandi, A. and Surya Rao, U. Implementation of Total Quality Management in Engineering Institution, the Indian Journal of Technical Education, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 82-84, 2007. quality of all functions of an organization. Industries have embarrassed TQM, especially the developed countries for more than two decades earlier several industries in India have also adapted TQM, though the number is less. Taking the cue of decade of TQM implementation in educational institutions elsewhere, their success and their problems encountered by them, it is required to assess the need, portability and means for institutionalizing TQM in technical education. 4. C.B. Suresh, Achyutha, B.T. and Siddeswarappa, B. Study on Continuous Quality Improvement in Engineering Education in Accredited Institutions in Karnataka state, Proceedings of International Conference held at SSIT, Tumkur on Nov 18-19, pp. 123-128, 2010. 5. Srinivas, V. and Ratnakar, A. Restructuring the Education to meet the Global Requirements: A Need Indeed, The Indian Journal of Technical Education, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 87-89, 2007. 6. Tang, Y.S. Examples of Conventional Cooperative Engineering Education Today, proceedings of International engineering education partnership workshop at Nanjing, China on June 1, 2002. 57