Government Engineering Colleges in Assam: Current Status and Steps for Improvement

The State Government has well understood the demand of technical education in the state and attention is focused on rapid development in this field, with global professional standards and international accreditation being recognised as the benchmarks for quality assurance. In this regard, it is important to understand an accord called The Washington Accord. This is an international agreement to ensure consistent quality of undergraduate engineering program across the World. Programs recognised by accrediting authorities in countries that are signatories are considered to be equivalent in terms of quality and the graduate attributes. In 2014, the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) India joined as a signatory for programs accredited by NBA offered by education providers accepted by NBA as Tier 1 institutions. In February 2015, the Government of Assam appointed an expert team from the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Curtin University Australia to conduct an audit of technical education in the public sector. The purpose of the audit was to find the gaps that may exist in governance, curriculum, policies, guidelines and community engagement in relation to those to be required and found in a Washington Accord approved programme. This paper summarises some of the gaps. This is followed by recommendations to improve the technical education sector in Assam. The findings in the gap analysis are the first in a series of steps toward the long-awaited restructuring of the technical higher education sector in the state of Assam. It is now up to the Government of Assam to take the necessary steps in addressing the issues to reenergise the technical higher education sector and bring the public technical colleges to the forefront of quality Indian institutions offering international standard engineering education and infrastructure.


Introduction
Assam has five Government engineering colleges: Assam Engineering College (AEC) at Guwahati, Jorhat Engineering College (JEC)  Against this backdrop, this study is an attempt to critically discuss the current status of the government Engineering Colleges in Assam and the ways for its improvement. It begins with a brief discussion of the Washington Accord, which is considered as the benchmark of quality assurance in technical Institutes. Following this, it discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the Engineering Colleges of Assam and the ways for its amelioration.

The Washington Accord: Graduate Attributes and Competencies
The Washington Accord is an international agreement to ensure consistent quality of undergraduate engineering program across the World. Programs recognised by accrediting authorities in countries that are signatories are considered to be equivalent in terms of quality and the graduate attributes. In 2014, the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) India joined as a signatory for programs accredited by NBA offered by education providers accepted by the NBA as Tier 1 institutions. The Graduate Attributes, as defined in the Accord are a set of individually assessable outcomes, that are the components indicative of the graduate's potential to acquire competence to practice at the appropriate level (clear, succinct, measurable statements of the expected capability, qualified if necessary by a range of indication appropriate to the type of the program). More specifically, the Washington Accord graduate attributes are:  Engineers with core knowledge in a discipline  Technically competent  Able to carry out problem analysis and design and development of solutions  Competent in modern tool usage  Aware of the Engineer and the Society, the Environment and Sustainability  Capable of demonstrating high level of Ethics  Able to perform individually and in a team  Versatile in professional communication  Demonstrate knowledge of engineering management and economics  Willing to be a life-long learner This set of attributes is the minimum requirements for a graduate from the programs and vary slightly from individual signatoryadopted versions to reflect local context or a higher set of competencies. The example of documents or evidence to evaluate programs in the state government Engineering colleges of Assam is shown in Table 1. The research questionnaire is summarised in Table 2.

Weaknesses in the Governance Model
Assam technical education institutions are plagued by a bureaucracy that constrains academic and operational capacity. Currently, the system at best could be described as passive, not proactive. Colleges cannot appoint their own staff, and a significant percentage of sanctioned posts are vacant. There is intense negativity about their ability to modernise equipment, facilities, and to initiate self-development. Staff development, systematic resource building and academic progression to reward performance are non-existent. There is an evident lack of institutional planning: goals to achieve in the short, medium and long-term are missing. Robust policies for various academic functions including policies and guidelines for assessment, disciplinary measures, quality review and improvement need to be in place. The dedication and passion for academia are clearly visible among both staff and students, and the presence of a sound governance structure would do dramatically assist the Engineering Colleges in establishing themselves as academic institutions offering internationally accredited programs.

Curriculum Development, Delivery and Review
Current curriculum offered by the Colleges is prescribed by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). While the content is relevant, it lacks a contemporary touch. In most cases, the curriculum appears not have been reviewed in the past few years, even though there is a provision of a review every five years leaving the curriculum static rather than dynamic. Lack of industry input and the absence of a mechanism for Industry to engage are apparent. Learning units are merely staggered to form a curriculum rather than being structured ways of unit learning outcomes building towards year-level outcomes and then to course learning outcomes relating to graduate attributes. Connectivity and progress to completion are absent. Furthermore, the curriculum lacks critical topics such as Engineering Ethics, Professional Practice and Sustainability. Organisationally, there are no written policies on curriculum design, program educational objectives, program learning outcomes, changes to curriculum content or requirements, external review or cyclic review, benchmarking, quality assessment or assessment of learning quality.

Access to Modern Tools and Equipment
Most teaching venues in the Engineering colleges of Assam are traditional "Chalk and Talk" environments. If a student misses a lecture, it is not clear how he/she may access this other than to rely on peer support. Libraries are poorly resourced; computing resources are inadequate and not reflective of modern technology or trends. Laboratory equipment is old, and its calibration, accuracy and repeatability of results are questionable. Technical support is also not adequate. The equipment is visibly aged and not suitable at all for research projects. Students are unlikely to carry over equipment training undertaken at the Colleges to the modern workplace. Many excellent modern teaching tools including essential internet, Wi-Fi, digital journals and ebooks, and specialised Software are not available.

Assessment Design and Review
There is an inadequate pedagogical design of the assessment regime leading to outcomes that are not fit for purpose in many cases. Students receive little or no feedback. There are no annual course reviews, no quality panels, no written policies, guidelines for assessment type and weightings, plagiarism, appeal process, learning objectives, use of learning tools in examination venue, invigilation, moderation, etc. Students wait up to six months for examination results. There is no defined process for students to raise concerns, grievances, or matters of unfair treatment. Little or no support exists for counselling, disabled students, or support for academically struggling or lateral entry students. There is no evidence of formal student feedback on courses, content, infrastructure, teaching staff and delivery mechanisms.

Research Capacity
There is a willingness to engage with higher education institutions like JEC or AEC in research matters. However, these departments generally do not have access to research budgets. There is significant room to engage in aquaculture research and sustainable aquaculture, but little or no support for research funding in this area. Research capable academic staffs in AEC and JEC are unanimous in their concerns and disaffection with the expectation that they are expected to make research contributions while still carrying full teaching loads. All faculty members are fulltime teachers with a reported average of 10 hours of classroom teaching per week, with some reporting up to 19 hours teaching per week. With the support and technical staff working on civil service scheduled time, academics report that they are unable to compete with other autonomous institutes on research projects. Three main areas of concern among the research staff of AEC and JEC are: There are significant anxiety and confusion over the establishment of Assam Science and Technology University (ASTU). The vision and mission of ASTU is not clearly communicated to the Colleges. Enlisting private colleges prior to securing the buy-in of the public colleges has led to a reputational risk for ASTU. ASTU does not have an academic function yet, and there is discomfort among students in obtaining a qualification from ASTU over the long-standing degree-granting institutions such as the Gauhati University and Dibrugarh University. The Government's vision of a technical higher education model in Assam rests heavily on the success of the ASTU-Engineering Colleges relationship. It is easily possible to achieve a mutually beneficial model that delivers ASTU degrees for the Colleges with clearly defined administrative support functions from ASTUparticularly on the strength of the Washington Accord accredited programs.

Immediate Steps:
The following recommendations are made to improve the technical education sector in Assam:

Concluding Remarks
It is an opportune time for the Government of Assam to put the ASTU vision forward to the Colleges, so the Colleges see ASTU as the leading body in the offering, administering and managing the internationally accredited program. ASTU should also be responsible for one-stop resource delivery and governance for the Department of Education, thus substantially reducing bureaucracy. This will also allow the Government to fulfil the promises made to the Assam Directorate of Technical Education in bringing the public technical colleges to the IIT level. Furthermore, it would also be an excellent gesture by the Government to offer a quality product to the private colleges encouraging them to raise their standard.
ASTU concept is meritorious and offers significant gains for Technical Higher Education in Assam. However, the strategic leadership of ASTU has failed. Operational leadership is vague and conflicting, and ASTU is seen as an administrative watchdog, nothing else. The Colleges and other entities cannot make any real gains towards accreditation unless they collaborate-ASTU as the vehicle for that. Colleges feel excluded and downgraded. This must be reversed, and ASTU must become the overarching administrative entity it should be, shepherding the leading colleges to deliver an academic program that can be accredited with the NBA.
The role of ASTU and the affiliation of Colleges need to be re-engineered. This may include rebranding the two colleges for example, "University College of Assam or the University College of Jorhat" and this status for the reputable public pioneers. It is also important to define and communicate the role of Private Colleges in ASTU structure and decision-making and balance this with the role of the public colleges. One way to achieve this may be to establish ASTU Boards of Studies chaired by current College staff and with nominal private provider representative (singular) to restore the balance of power and re-invest academic leadership capital in delivery of qualifications. The current situation where there is no plan in delivering discontent, obfuscation and alienation, it is time to re-invent and re-engineer an ASTU-AEC-JEC powerhouse. Assam is ready for taking a transformational step in collaborative research and partnerships. A culture change in this regard will be of enormous benefit for the Government of Assam in transforming the technical education sector in an integrated way.