Quality Assurance in Higher Education
Role of Alumni – A Case Study
- Prof. K V Prabhakara
Principal
SBRR Mahajana First Grade College
Jayalakshmipuram, Mysore
Introduction
“Every stakeholder of higher education has a role to play in quality
enhancement and has the obligation to play it well. All the stakeholders in higher
education – the government, the managements of institutions, the teachers, the
students and the external quality assurance agencies – have important, may be
different, but complementary roles in ensuring the quality of higher education…”,
says the preamble to the Student Charter released by NAAC. There are twenty points
in this model charter. The last and the twentieth point calls upon students to live as
worthy alumni of the institution.
Alumni Participation in Quality Enhancement in Higher Education
‘Quality consciousness is important in all aspects of human endeavours
including education’. It is the ‘defining element of education’ in the 21st century.
“Quality, as all of us are aware, makes education as much socially relevant as it is
personally indispensable to the individual.” (Prof. V S Prasad, former Director,
NAAC).
The best practices followed in different areas of institutional performance in
aggregation manifest excellence in higher education. They add commendable value to
an institution and its various stake holders, and, therefore, become reliable benchmarks or standards of quality. [The NAAC advocates constituting IQACs and
prescribes ‘Four I & D model’: Identification, Implementation, Institutionalization,
Internalization and Dissemination of best practices for successful application of the
best practices in higher education institutions.]
Alumni participation in quality enhancement in higher education is an
important area to look into. Though alumni participation is institution specific, its
overall impact on general improvement of the subject in discussion is very high.
Broadly we can identify four major areas for alumni intervention in the
growth, progress and quality enhancement of higher education. They are:
1. Financial and infrastructural help
For any meaningful activity finance and infrastructural support is very
essential. Though quality does not entirely depend upon resources, its
importance can never be underplayed. Pragmatic alumni initiatives have
Education to make finer citizens
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substantially contributed to the growth of institutions. The website of IIT
Kharagpur carries an appeal by the Dean, Alumni Affairs, for generous
contributions to “$ 1.0 million challenge in some combinations of time,
experience and money.”
The KREC – AA in its 4th global convention decided to form Heritage &
Technology centres with a budget of Rs. 2 crores.
The IIMA - Alumni Association talks of pursuing “Strategies that ensure
continued academic success along with financial sustainability.” It further says,
“Creating a large corpus is essential if the institute must have greater autonomy and
flexibility in defining its agenda. This assumes greater significance in the light of the
government’s decision to freeze funding to the IIMs.”
HBS alumni contributed $ 37 million. Wharton’s alumni raised $ 300 million.
INSEAD’s alumni allocate 10% mobilized funds to fund case writing.
2. Experience Sharing
“BITSAA promotes and encourages the alumni to exchange professional
knowledge by undertaking and facilitating conferences, seminars, lectures and
meetings amongst alumni, students, faculty and others. It will also honour and
facilitate distinguished alumni.”
The IIT – Delhi Alumni Association’s incoming president speaks thus: “I am sure
that every one of us is indebted to the institute for the excellent education and training
it has imparted to us. It is my firm belief that all of us should give back to the institute
whatever we can in the form of mentoring the students, delivering lectures or
organizing workshops on specific fields of interest where we have gained
experience….”
3. Working towards carving a brand image for the alma mater
Today, every institution works hard to carve distinct image for itself. It is very
important to sell ourselves. Creating a brand image is a tedious task. It calls for
total dedication, sacrifice and patience to establish a brand image. Image is
truly representative of the institution itself.
4. Bridging the gap between campus and companies
We need education for life and more for our living. However, today’s
education doesn’t ensure 100% employment, mainly because of the inherent
limitations of the present education system. This is where alumni come handy.
The story of major alumni associations anywhere in the world would stand
testimony to this.
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a. IIMA alumni
“Our vision for the alumni initiative is that ex-students of IIMA will play a
significant role in strengthening of core aspects of the management school.
This translates into four strategic objectives.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Strengthen governance & autonomy
Create alliance with industry and academia
Improve quality of teaching & research
Increase funding”
b. ISEC Ph.D. Students Alumni
It has been formed with the prime objective of bridging the gap between the
institute and its Ph.D. scholars who are placed in different corners of the globe.
Some of the lesser known Alumni Associations, keeping employer expectations
in mind, have taken to running finishing schools and offering crash courses for
their members along with other aspirants. In some other cases alumni who run
industries have directly approached the institutions and have placed demand for
candidates with specific qualifications tailor-made for their requirement.
Alumni participation – other areas
There are many areas other than what is discussed so far, where alumni can play
a lead role with regard to their alma maters.
1. Assist new academic programmes
Alumni Associations can institute several kinds of useful, short-term add-on
courses for present students as well as outsiders. Eg. Courses on E-Governance.
The Harward Business School Alumni actively influence the agenda and
direction of the institution by leading various committees such as
Communication, Scholarships, Re-Unions, Continuing education and
Recruitment.
At most US schools, alumni also support activities such as admissions, career
guidance etc.
2. Initiate Social Ventures
Third world and under-developed countries offer a number of opportunities to
NGOs and social organizations to engage themselves in social service. Menaces
like poverty, hunger, illiteracy, health, hygiene etc. are subjects where people’s
involvement is desired. Alumni Associations are the ideal fora to take up these
tasks. Philanthropy, giving and not for profit activities, could absorb alumni
associations for fruitful results.
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3. Promote Sports, Adventure, Cultural and Literary activities
Alumni Associations can have their vision set much beyond professional
portals. The activities profile of Mysore Medical College Alumni Association
(MAA) stands testimony to such an ideal. “A well equipped auditorium with
state-of-the-art acoustic and mixing facilities seating 800 people saw the light of
the day. Thanks to generous contribution from alumni from India and the US…
4. Create awareness about vital issues
Alumni Associations can play a very important role in alerting the youth by
creating awareness in them on important global, national and local issues. This
would partially compensate for the limited exposure the present education has
given to our youth. Alumni Associations can create small windows to look at
the world in the background of our own domestic issues. Eg. - Internal security
and global terrorism
Case Study - Questionnaire and Result Sheet
No. of Respondents: 315
Max. Marks: 1260
1. Do you like the idea of Alumni Association?
Yes - 287
No - 28
2. What is your expectations as a member of Alumni Association (rating – 1 to 4)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Moral Support of alma mater
Sentimental fulfillment
Academic help
Career Support
989
798
723
640
(78.4%)
(63%)
(57.3%)
(50.6%)
3. How do you think alumni can help in quality enhancement in Higher Education?
(alma mater) (rating – 1 to 4)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Through financial help
Through experience sharing
By working towards carving a brand image for the alma mater (by your own image)
By facilitating bridging of gap between campus and companies (employer)
742 (59%)
877 (69%)
842 (67%)
686 (54%)
4. Other areas, you think, alumni can be of help to Higher Education Institutions
(rating – 1 to 4)
a. Instituting new academic programmes Eg:- CRM,
Retail Management, Credit Management etc.
856 (68%)
b. Using the college platform for launching social ventures. 797 (63%)
Eg. Adult education, campaign against dowry etc.
c. Promoting sports & adventure activities
750 (60%)
d. Creating a window for National issues en route global
subjects. Eg. Internal security and global terrorism
746 (59%)
5. Any other related issues you would like to comment on
(very briefly)
Education to make finer citizens
– Nil
4
Analysis
The pilot study involved 315 respondents who were subjected to 12 questions.
This data gives us a gross idea of the respondents, but does not show to which
category of questions the response is significant or high. In order to first understand
this aspect the data in was rearranged in the form of Stem and Leaf plot (Table 2).
This table indicates that those scoring in the range of 80 were highest followed by
respondents scoring in the range of 60. The least scores by respondents were those in
the range of 20,110,120 and 150, indicating that the values obtained were not quite
significant (Leaf values were less although the stem values were high).
Skewness and Kurtosis
The first task is to determine whether the data obtained has a symmetrical
distribution or how likely it is that the sampling of data was randomly obtained. This
is done by calculating skewness and kurtosis. The first one is a measure of symmetry
while the second is a measure of the data being peaked or flat. Skewness for the
normal distribution is 0 and kurtosis for normal distribution is 3. Further the ‘Z’ value
is also calculated. It must be less than 1.96 for a significance test at 0.05% level. The
‘Z’ values calculated for both skewness and kurtosis are not greater than the value
1.96. Taking into account skewness and kurtosis together we can conclude that the
selection of respondents questioned definitely follow a normal distribution.
The third aspect being whether the 12 questions framed in 3 main areas were
linked to each other or not and also whether they were significantly related or which
of the parameter was prominent. In order to do this the data in was subjected to a
Hierarchical Cluster Analysis that results in a Dendrogram. The Agglomeration
Schedule for average linkage between groups and the Dendrogram is presented in
Figure 1. At stage 1 two clusters are obtained. A small cluster of 4 parameters
indicates that facilitating bridging of gap between campus and companies has high
prominence. It has a bearing on the fact that alumni can provide financial help as well
as assist in instituting new academic programs and these could be achieved through
experience sharing.
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Cluster 1
5
6
8
9
(Numbers denote variables in Questionnaire)
The second cluster deals with the importance of the Alumni Association. In
fact it is a large cluster of 7 variables in the questionnaire wherein moral support of
the Alma mater has the highest hierarchy. This in turn is mainly dependent on
sentimental fulfillment. Five important factors like academic help, career support,
financial help, working towards carving a brand image for the alma matter etc can be
done by using the college platform for launching social ventures. The last two factors,
definitely contribute to the alma mater but to a lesser extent.
Cluster 2
4
3
1
2
5
7
11
10
12
(Numbers denote variables in questionnaire)
After these activities have been done in a phased manner the number of
clusters in the second stage become reduced to only 2 and little remains to be done by
the Alumni Association. Therefore, working towards carving a brand image for the
Alma mater specially through experience sharing is the next task.
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To conclude, youth are sentimentally attached to their alma mater and expect
moral support more than anything else. They are very keen in experience sharing with
the alma mater. They think that they can initiate certain new programmes so as to add
value to their alma mater. The study indicates that Alumni Association has a profound
role to play in Quality Enhancement in Higher Education.
Table – 2: Stem and Leaf Plot
Stem
Leaf
2
3
3
2
8
4
5
5
8
9
5
1
1
9
9
6
1
1
1
3
4
6
7
1
3
5
6
6
9
8
0
1
3
5
5
6
9
2
4
9
10
2
7
9
11
6
12
6
13
1
15
3
8
8
8
6
7
8
8
9
3
Legend 3/2 = 32
References:
1. Quinn Mc Nemar 1969 Psychological Statistics 4th Ed.
2. K V Prabhakara, Alumni Participation in Quality Enhancement.
-x-x-x-
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