Is our higher education compliance centric? The answer is yes, because higher education institutions (HEIs) lay larger focus on securing timely approvals from regulating bodies, subsequently accreditation with a good score, good national/international ranking, etc.  Indisputably, the compliances are supposed to assure quality, but the obsession with compliance estranges the HEIs from achieving excellence in education by faculty striving to cultivate critical thinking, curiosity, competence, and real-world readiness of the students.

A lot of emphasis is on timely submission of approval requirements to the regulator, getting checklists ticked, fulfilment of prescribed norms for infrastructure, human resource, teaching-learning supporting requirements, etc. Undoubtedly, all of these compliances aim at improving the teaching-learning ecosystem on all accounts, but merely satisfying the norms for running HEIs defeats the intent of increasing GER and deviates from creating a good-quality higher education system.

The present higher education system is primarily compliance-centric rather than quality-centric, and the procedural correctness surpasses the priority of enhancing the rigour level and achieving academic excellence. However, the students and stakeholders look upon HEIs as sacrosanct and get accustomed to the prevailing academic system, whether it is rigorous or lax. As a result, upon their inability to secure a suitable placement, the trust deficit evolves, and the quality of education gets compromised.

The paradigm shift from quality-centric to compliance-centric higher education is primarily attributed to the rapid expansion envisaged to attain GER of 50 by 2035, and secondly, due to lesser spending owing to limited government funding in public sector HEIs and savings maximisation in private sector HEIs. 

This compliance culture has deepened because of the HEIs prioritising accreditation and ranking over imparting knowledge to students, who also aim at fetching grades instead of seeking knowledge. Certain privileges and advantages associated with the accreditation and ranking are also contributing to the increasing emphasis on them. As a result, the underlying purpose of strengthening internal quality systems and self-reflection is lost amidst documentation, file preparation, data generation, compilation and presentation for the accreditation and rankings.

Alongside, the faculty engagement in preparing appraisal reports, annual reports, maintaining data on portals and recording of evidence squeezes their productive time, which could be otherwise used for nurturing students, strengthening academics & research, and self-growth. Reorienting faculty’s focus from ‘what students want’ to ‘what regulators want’ makes them compliance-centric and dissuades them from initiating risky initiatives, and the teaching, mentoring, and curriculum innovation become casualties.

Temptation to secure good grades or approvals without holistically improving the core functions of HEIs has germinated corrupt practices, and the incidents of bribery for seeking favour, arrests of peer team members by CBI, en masse removal of experts by regulators, loss of trust in regulators, micromanagement of HEIs by non-academics, etc., are visible culmination of these. While invisible impact is in the form of degrading education quality from such compromised HEIs, despite possessing good credentials. 

Eventually, the rolling out of students with underprepared credentials creates a vicious loop in which inadequate quality yields further poorer quality.  A cue can be had from the growing army of certified yet non-confident and unemployable degree holders—despite relentless syllabus revisions, the incessant push for outcome-based education, skill-development rhetoric, research incentives, and elaborate assessment frameworks that thrive on paper effectively but not in classrooms.

Although NEP 2020 advocates for the autonomy of HEIs, it appears difficult in the over-regulated framework with a focus on capturing data and the reporting culture. Absence of trust in HEIs and their gradual transformation to become rule followers violates the premise of autonomy and deters them from educational innovations because often they may not fit in the prescribed template.

The inability of some HEIs to attract good-quality students despite proudly showcasing top accreditation grades and rankings calls for honest introspection. Because the accreditation and ranking scores could be good to hit headlines, but hardly inspire students to choose such HEIs. Ultimately, what matters is the prevailing legacy & credibility of the HEI, worthwhile classroom experiences, the seriousness of academic mentoring, the real-world outcomes promised and delivered by HEIs, and overall public perception. These factors demonstrate the primary commitment of HEI towards its basic purpose of education delivery through which the students gain competency and abilities, and in the process, the norms and regulations are fulfilled automatically.

It’s high time to slowly replace the compliance-centric higher education system with the quality-driven system where academic merit takes precedence over merely satisfying regulatory requirements, which is just a consequence rather than the sole objective. Let the HEIs prepare students to not only pass examinations in HEIs but also succeed in handling real-life challenges with their knowledge and abilities comfortably. Nevertheless, the compliances are inevitable at the time of the start of HEI, when the procedural integrity and fairness ought to be ascertained with a stringent regulatory framework for complete transparency of the functioning of HEIs to ensure it’s accountability alongwith the highest academic standards and ethics. 

Moreover, while there is no dearth of regulatory requirements for HEIs in the country, these requirements may keep them procedurally correct and orderly; however, these mechanisms often fail to produce competent human resources capable of expanding knowledge and critical thinking. Ideally, HEIs should not camouflage or manipulate data to appear well on paper during external assessments for approval, accreditation, and ranking. Instead, the compliance of regulatory norms and consistent efforts to overcome gaps, achieve excellence and innovation should be in its natural functioning throughout, else not only the assessments become defective, and the education suffers adversely, but also breaches the integrity of the academic leadership, and teachers engaged in such unethical acts. Teachers and institutional leadership must embody the highest moral and ethical standards in all pursuits, not merely preach them, because when academics compromise, the students internalise wrong learnings and society bears the brunt. HEIs should honestly overcome their deficiencies and address them holistically, and ensure that their actions signal responsibility, integrity, and intellectual seriousness.

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