Thursday, July 28, 2005

Rating agencies and engineering colleges


Rashmi Bansal has a post about AICTE's recent decision to outsource the process of accreditation of engineering colleges to independent (and well known) credit rating agencies such as CRISIL, ICRA and CARE.

This is a welcome move, and should gladden the heart of Satya, who mooted this idea a while ago. Together with strict norms on timely disclosure of all relevant information, this idea will go a long way towards improving the quality of engineering education in our country.

In her post, Rashmi points to a Sunday ToI news story (sorry, no link). She expands on this theme to outline some of the things that will make this process work better. In particular, she suggests roping in the key stake holders -- the studnets -- for keeping the managements on their toes.

1 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    I guess things are pretty hazy with engineering institutes, but the damange done by lack of regulations and eyewashes is pretty bad in humanities and management as well.


    A lot of the rating is heavily influenced by what the institution was, and the rating is based on what was heard about the institute at a previous point in time. The place I did my postgraduation, TISS, is one such place. The facilities, the campus and in many ways the course pedagogy is outdated, and needs revamping. And the management is still dangling from a 1970s moral and leftist hangover. And yet it gets a Five Star Rating!

    Through my two years, I failed to understand how this institute could have gotten a five star rating.

    Six people to a hostel room, and yet the profs would have rooms like palace gardens. No cafe or canteen in the campus. (That means no food other than the Mess food, and ulcers for students!)

    Another thing.. if you look at the way that India Today does its rating. It's laughable. The institutes go up and down. (Perhaps India Today thinks of it somewhat like a Box Office Rating), and there is a definite bias towards institutions which were (oooh) the grapevines of To-Be IAS officials once upon a jurassic-time.

    (end of rant disguised as comment!)