ACCREDITATION PROCESS AND TQM
Nitin. G Hiranandani
Head of Mechanical Engineering Department,
Tolani Foundation Gandhidham Polytechnic, Adipur (Kutch) Gujarat
ABSTRACT
The need for quality engineers is increasing very fast, which
has resulted in to rise in intake of the institutes all over the
country. The All India Council for Technical Education
(AICTE) which was established by an act of the parliament in
1987 is apex body responsible for overseeing the growth and
quality of technical education in the country, has even allowed
running second shift in degree as well diploma engineering
institutes. The numbers of government and self-finance
institutes and type of courses have also increased substantially
all over the country. The students, who are real customers, for
any institute have plenty of choice to select the institute,
courses and timings i.e. shift as per their convenience. One of
the biggest criterions to select the institute is the quality of
education an institute can provide. Often question arises in the
mind of students as to which institute is good quality institute?
AICTE, in 1994, felt the need to set up National Board of
Accreditation (NBA) to assess the qualitative competence of
educational institutions under AICTE. NBA gives accreditation
for 3 years or 5 years to institutes depending upon marks
obtained by institutes, which is considered as indicative of the
institute quality. The institute, have also choice to opt for ISO
9000 series of Certification, which is for Quality Management
System of any organization including educational institutes.
ISO 9000 certified institute gives the fair idea to the students
that the institute has good quality management system at its
place. Total Quality Management (TQM) is the concept that
quality can be managed – it is a process – and is a philosophy
of perpetual improvement. The paper has emphasis on
Accreditation process of NBA, TQM and how both can be
interrelated.
I. INTRODUCTION
Quality of technical /engineering education is of the utmost
importance with lot of field exposure to convert student
customer in to ready to use product, which is the requirement
of the industry. Every institute should aim for high quality
education, which can be achieved by applying TQM principles.
TQM is adopted by manufacturing organizations but lately is
adopted by service kind of organization including educational
institutes. In TQM, Total (T) stands as complete means at all
levels and all functions. Quality (Q) is understood as “fitness to
use”. Management (M) is getting work done from others. Total
quality is description of culture, attitude of institute that aims to
provide and continue to provide its student and other
stakeholders with services that satisfies their need. TQM
should be taken as way of life.
NBA asses the institute for its performance based on eight
criteria’s for the purpose of giving accreditation
Accreditation and it’s relevance with TQM or vice versa is to
be established.
II. RELATED KEY TERMS
Quality:
Quality can be interpreted as "Customer's expressed and
implied requirements are met fully". Some eminent definitions
of quality have been derived from this core statement. They
include "the totality of features and characteristics of a product
or service that bears on its ability to meet a stated or implied
need" [ISO, 1994], "fitness for use" [Juran, 1988], and
“conformance to requirement” [Crosby, 1979]. It is important
to note that satisfying the customers' needs and expectations is
the main factor in all these definitions. Therefore, it is an
imperative for an institute to identify such needs of students
early. In 1992 Crosby broadened his definition for quality
adding an integrated notion to it: "Quality meaning getting
everyone to do what they have agreed to do and to do it right
the first time is the skeletal structure of an organization,
finance is the nourishment, and relationships are the soul."
Customer satisfaction:
Customer satisfaction is a term generally used to measure a
customer's perception of a company's products and services. It
can equally be applied to educational institutes.
It is not a straightforward science. However, as customer
satisfaction will vary from person to person, depending on a
whole host of variables which may be both psychological and
physical.
Measurement of customer satisfaction usually makes use of
a feedback forms. In case of institutes the feed back forms are
got filled from students for faculty performance, contents of
course dealt etc. these could be got filled from alumni, parents
and even employers for the performance of student as engineer.
The ultimate aim of measuring customer satisfaction must be
to act on the information gathered, close the "gaps" between
the customer's perception of service and the actual service
provided.
Recent thinking by leading customer service gurus such as
Dr Ken Blanchard concludes that customers should not be
merely satisfied, they should be delighted.
That's one more challenge for companies/institutes who
claim to have achieved 100% customer satisfaction.
Continuous improvement:
Continuous Improvement Process (CIP, or CI) is a
management process whereby delivery (customer valued)
processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of
their efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility.
The eminent total quality management (TQM) guru and
renowned statistician Edward W. Deming saw it as part of the
'system' whereby feedback from the process and customer were
evaluated against organisational goals. The fact that it can be
called a management process does not mean that it needs to be
executed by 'management' merely that it makes decisions about
the implementation of the delivery process and the design of
the delivery process itself.
Some successful implementations use the approach known
as KAIZEN (the translation of kai (“change”) zen (“good”) is
“improvement”). This method became famous by the book of
Masaaki Imai “Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive
Success.”
• The core principle of CIP is the (self) reflection of
processes. (Feedback)
• The purpose of CIP is the identification, reduction and
elimination of suboptimal processes. (Efficiency)
• The emphasis of CIP is on incremental, continuous
steps, avoiding quantum leaps. (Evolution)
The elements above are more tactical elements of CIP, the
more strategic elements include deciding how to increase the
value of the delivery process output to the customer
(Effectiveness) and also how much flexibility is valuable in the
process to meet changing needs.
Internal customer:
If one department, individual or process within an
organization supplies another within the same organization
with goods, information or services then the latter is described
as the internal customer of the former.
For example, a dispatch department may be the internal
customer of a packing department, which in turn may be the
internal customer of the manufacturing process.
In institute for students, accounts department-cash section
could be internal customer to admission departmen, the student
section could be internal customer to accounts department,
library could be internal customer to department of study of
student. The laboratories, as internal customer to stores and
purchase function of the institute, and so on.
PDCA Cycle: Figure 1
Deming introduced PDCA cycle as: PLAN, DO, CHECK
and ACT. This is also called Deming cycle. Deming created a
diagram to illustrate this continuous improvement process.
PLAN: Determine goals and methods of reaching goals.
DO: Implement plan and measure its performance.
CHECK: Assess the measurements
ACT: Take the appropriate action
Figure 1 PDCA Cycle
III. TQM
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a business
management strategy aimed at embedding awarwenes of
quality in all organizational processes. TQM has been widely
used in manufacturing, government, and service industries
including education.
TQM in institute is composed of three paradigms:
• Total: Involving the entire institute, it’s all functions
at all levels.
• Quality: With its usual definitions, with all its
complexities as explained earlier
• Management: The system of managing with steps like
Plan, Organize, Control, Staff, etc
As defined by the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO):
"TQM is a management approach for an organization,
centered on quality, based on the participation of all its
members and aiming at long-term success through customer
satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization
and to society." ISO 8402:1994
TQM requires that the organisation maintain quality standard
in all aspects.This requires ensuring that things are done right
the first time and everytime.
IV. ACCREDITATION
Accreditation of an academic institute by an accrediting
body (NBA for this paper) is a “process of quality assurance,
whereby a programme in an approved institution is critically
appraised at intervals not exceeding 6 years to verify that the
institution programmes meet the norms and standards
prescribed by AICTE. NBA accord accreditation to programme
of the institute and not institute as a whole. Hence, some
programmes of institute may get accreditation for 3 years;
some for 5 years and some may not get accreditation.
Table 1 shows Accreditation parameters and their
weightages. The weightages vary with the institute/course
being accredited i.e. diploma, under graduate or postgraduate
institute or course.
 TABLE-1
NBA ACCREDITATION PARAMETERS & THEIR
WEIGHTAGES The main stakeholders of the accreditation are the, students
and prospective students (customer), indirect employers,
PARAMETERS DIPLOMA UG PG industry, academic institutions and their faculty and staff, and
Organization and governance 30 80 50 governmental bodies
Financial resources, allocation 70 70 50 The public statement on the degree to which the institute
& utilization meets educational standards serves as a credential, i.e. 3 years
Physical resources 50 50 50 or 5 years accreditation. The stakeholders of the program to
Human resources 160 160 160 assess the quality of the institute and to guide its future
(faculty &staff) development can use the credential.
Teaching learning process 450 350 250 The accreditation also serves to foster self-examination by
Supplementary process 50 50 50 academic institutions; to develop a dialog between stakeholders
R&D and interaction efforts 50 100 250 of institution and programmes on content, methods, and
TOTAL 1000 100 1000 outcomes, and to encourage continuous improvement.
0
V. ACCREDITATION PROCESS
TABLE 2:
ACCREDITATION PROCESS STEPS Accreditation process is as refered in the Table 2, institute
has to prepare for applying for accreditation and submit the
STEP DESCRIPTION proformas to NBA, as first step. Then after NBA has to act on
1 Submission of proformas of accreditation by it and do the further steps. After the step 7 stage the institute
institution to NBA may decide to withdraw the programme(s) from consideration
2 Visiting team identification and chairperson by NBA for accreditation; as it may happen that institute is not getting
3 The profile of institution/programme is provided to the riqisit marks to get the minimum 3 years accreditation. If
visiting team not withdrawn the “Not Accreditated” public statement may
4 Visiting team critically study the information damage the image of the institution. Insteed it is better to
provided by NBA withdraw and get the report from the NBA on the deficiencies
5 Furnishing more information to the visiting team by found by the visiting team. Prepare then for accreditation and
NBA(through correspondence) apply once again. If all is well then NBA team will complete
6 Visit to the institution(laboratories, libraries, the whole 15 step procedure and give the grading.
workshops and other infrastructures/facilities)as per
schedule VI. GRADING OF PROGRAMM
7 Discussions with the management, principal, dean
and others, enumerating strengths and weaknesses of The process of accreditation by NBA is a “yes” or “no” type
the programme. two part grading system of accreditation. Individual
8 Discussions among members of visiting team programmes shall be classified in to one of the categories as
followed by finalization of the report. refered inTable3.
9 Submission of the report by the chairperson of the
visiting team to the sectoral team VII. ACCREDITATION AND TQM
10 Consideration of the report of the visiting team by
the sectoral committee and forwarding of the report Students gets admission which is generally centralised. He
with it’s observations/recommendation to the NBA or she reports to institute selected during admission. From here
11 Consideration of the visiting team report with the onwards he or she becomes customer of the institute. As per
sectoral committee’s observations/recommendations TQM, customer satisfaction is utmost important. Hence as
by the NBA students reports to institute and pays up fees the orientation
12 Decision of the NBA on the status of accreditation programme starts. Following that student gets registered by
13 Reporting of accreditation decision by NBA to student section. After registration students becomes bonafide to
AICTE the institute and starts studying the course opted.
14 Communication of the accreditation decision to
institution Now student has to come across several section through out
15 Entry in to the directory(to be published annually) of the study at the institute,as refered in Figure2 in the appendix
the name of the institution/programme(s),the 1.
accreditation status and the date of issue At each and every place or for each activity following are
very important;

TABLE 3
GRADING
Status of Basis Marks
accreditation out of
1000
Accredited Excellent/very good;meeting Marks
for 5 years all accreditation criteria or required
exceeding them >750
Accredited for Good; meeting minimum Marks
3 years criteria with deficiencies being required
marginal and can be improved 650-750
within a short time
Not accredited Not ripe for accreditation,due <650
to seriousness of the
defeciencies
Qualified and adequate faculty members, support staff,
instructors, etc who are dedicated to their job. Reasonably good
class rooms, laboratories and other infrastructures.
If all is well internal customer concept is applied here then
each section is internal customer within the institute. Internal
customer satisfaction is also of utmost important which will
result in to student satisfaction, who is external customer.
Considaring institute as system and each of the section as
sub system then by applying system approach which means
each and every sub system is inter connected within the system
then performance of all the employees have to be up to the
mark to make whole system work effectively and with highest
efficiency. If this happens then their will be utmost satisfaction
to student who is external customer. It should not happen that
registration of student is done very effectively but teaching
learning process is not up to the mark or library has
combersome process to get books. Each and every sub system
incharge should apply PDCA cycle concept to continually
improve the performance of that section, which is key to good
TQM implimentation.
To make the student out as product from customer, apart
from quality education other all round development is equally
important. All round development can be achieved by
conducting value adding training programmes, seminars,
quizes etc by having ISTE Student chapter,Institute of
Engineers chapter active. In todays competitative world,
student should consider self employment as one of the carrier
option. Entrepreneural trainings could be imparted by
establishing Entrpreneurship Development Cell where
programmes related to skill development can be arranged with
entrepreneural inputs so that students can become ready to face
the challenges in the field. All these activities should be carried
out by applying principles of TQM. Industry Institute
partnership cell should be established to have healthy linkages
with industry. The linkage with industry will enhance the
arrangements for good expert lectures to share the current
practices in industry with that of theory, which students learn.
Industrial visits/training becomes mangable with strong
relation with industry. Finally placement of student should be
carried out by this cell.
Considering the accreditation process the first step to apply
for the accreditation refer Table 2, rest is performed by the
NBA/AICTE team. To apply for accreditation, institute should
ensure that all it’s sub systems and system as a whole is at it’s
place. The programme of institute is accreditated with respect
to marks obtained by the programme which all depends on
quality performance in each and every 8 parameters as refered
in Table 1
Obviously, almost 600 marks are for teaching learning
process and faculty and staff alltogether. So it becomes a very
important to concentrate on these parameters to score more and
aim for minimum 3 years accreditation. Faculty and staff
should be qualified and should be adequate enough to meet the
norms of AICTE with respect to student, faculty and support
staff ratio. Faculty should be motivted enogh to contribute a lot
in development of institute and serve better for the student who
is a customer, so that satisfaction is achieved to maximum.
Deming cycle can be gainfully applied to all academic
activities that too without any immediate financial
implications. Nevertheless, it will be better if this is applied to
the faculty most significant person who is much closer to the
students. One of the important functions required for successful
implementation of PDCA Cycle is to act upon getting the
feedback. However, the question is how frequently or when the
feedback is to be obtained. First, collect the feedback as and
when feasible or at appropriate checkpoints. Secondly, collect
feedback at the end of the session. Hence, these methods give
many opportunities for faculty to improve teaching, by
constantly changing the method of teaching suitable to
requirement of that batch of student. It is seen from the above
that the TQM implementation will improve the performance of
the programme/institute where as accreditation by NBA will
endorse the same hence TQM and Accreditation are very
relevant with each other.
VIII. CONCLUSSION
Quality improvement in engineering education is must to
produce engineers who can face challenges of the fast
developing compitative world. TQM can be used very
effectively in education field also though it was developed with
manufacturing process in mind. In education we get students
who are raw in knowledge of engineering joins institutes as
customer who can be converted in product as compitatant
engineer throgh effective and efficient teaching learning
process. Other all round development of student could be done
by Student chapters, Entrepreneurship Development Cells and
finally can be placed through the Industry Institute Partnership
Cell. The application of TQM should be made to have holistic
approach rather than any part/section of institute for continuous
improvement.
Accreditation has been made mandatory by AICTE for all
the technical institutes in India. Accreditation provides institute
with a structred mechanism to assess, evaluate and improve the
quality of education of any programme. Getting accreditation
by institute means that institute has met quality standards set by
the accreditating body, NBA. 3 years/5 year accreditation
status helps student and their parents to choose quality
programme of the institute.
Institutes should apply TQM irespective of accreditation, as
TQM is way of working whereas the accreditation is certifying
and giving credit as per the performance.
REFERENCES
[1] Arun S Patil “A research project concerning the
development of a scientific model for accreditation
and quality assuranse in engineering education”
World Transaction on Engineering and Tecnology
Education Vol.3,No 2,2004
[2] Efthimia Staiou “ Total Quality Management in
Engineering Education” Proceedings of the 3rd
WSEAS/IASME International Conference on
Engineering Education,Vouliagmeni,Greece,July 11-
13,2006(pp125-130)
[3] K G Viiswanadhan,N J Rao “Effectiveness of NBA
Accreditation Process” Department of Management
Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
[4] Kanakkancheriyil G.Visanadhan,Nalath J.Rao &
Chiranjith Mukhopadhyay “ A prediction of the
accreditation status of engineering programmes in
India” World Transaction on Engineering and
Tecnology Education Vol.3, No 2,2004
[5] P S Mohan Kumar “Total Quality Management
(TQM) in higher education and relevance of
accreditation”
[6] R Natrajan “The Role of Accreditation in Promoting
Quality Assurance of Technical Education” Int J Engg
Ed Vol 16 No 2 pp 85-96, 2000 Printed in Great
Britain
[7] Robert C Winn, Robert S Green “Applying Total
Quality Management to the Educational Process” Int J
Engg Ed Vol 16 No 2 pp 24-29, 1998 Printed in Great
Britain.
[8] S. Arockiasamy and B. Krishna Prasad, “Quality
Sustenance in Higher Education through
Accreditation” ICDE International Conference,
November 19-23, 2005, New Delhi.
[9] Science Tech, ENTREPRENEUR, January, 2006
[10] www.ccg-solutions.co.uk
[11] www.isixsigma.com, “Applying Total Quality
Management in Academics”
[12] Accreditation Manual of NBA