To harvest the benefits of globalisation in higher education and in job market, international accreditation of BTech course is necessary.
Last October, the BTech courses of KIIT University had obtained international accreditation by the global agency IET, the UK. In this context, we have taken interviews of Prof Richard Morling, Member, Academic Accreditation Committee, IET, the UK, and Dr Sasmita Samanta, Registrar, KITT University, Bhubaneswar, India. The interviews were conducted by Lalit Mohan Mishra.
Please tell me about the function of IET, the UK?
IET is the abbreviation for Institution of Engineering and Technology. It is a professional body of professional engineers, registered as a charity in the UK. We undertake accreditation by invitation from a university to accredit its engineering programme. IET gives international accreditation to the engineering courses all over the world. Thus far, IET has given international accreditation to 70 plus academic engineering institutions of 127 countries of the world. Our accreditation process benefits institution, the students and the employers.
How IET is different from other accreditation agencies?
There are mainly two prominent international accreditation agencies for the engineering courses. IET is the best one and it is unique in its approach to accreditation. It does not visit an institute once, assess its systems and issue an instant accreditation certificate. On the other hand, it believes in the capacity building of the institution before giving accreditation. It does not give calls to academic institutes to enroll for accreditation. Engineering academic institutes apply to IET voluntarily. IET assesses their application and accepts or rejects the request. Once IET accepts the request, it works with the academic institutes over two to three years to develop their systems and capacity through handholding and finally the accreditation is awarded.
It is therefore multiple visits by IET to the client organization.
Once the accreditation is awarded to an educational body, it remains valid for five years with an interim renewal after three years. Besides, we are connected to all the important stakeholders such as the corporate world, the professionals, the students, the Government and the academicians. We constantly assess the field needs and the demand - scenario and accordingly scale up our international quality benchmark. It is a continuous process.
Why international accreditation is important for Indian institutions?
Today is the globalisation era. India is moving ahead in the global stage. This has changed the situation of employment tremendously. Students are no more confined to the boundaries of their home nations to search domestic employment. They are free to pursue their career in any part of the world. They can fulfill their ambition of higher studies in any reputed university of the West. This shift from domestic to international perspective is not possible unless the student passes out from an internationally accredited college.
Therefore Indian academic institutions should possess international accreditation.
What’s the scenario of quality engineering education in India?
India is a vast country with varying systems of education. The quality of technical education is mixed in India. There are Government as well as private sector engineering colleges.
There are good institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology and other private bodies which provide quality engineering education.
On the other hand, there are numerous private institutions in the affiliation- system, which have grown up recently, where academic quality remains an area of concern. The quality of education is traditional there. The Indian institutions should affect a shift from the bookish education system to relevant education system. There is need for a pedagogical shift from teaching knowledge to enhance capability of the students. India has two systems of accreditation of higher education for domestic quality control.
What is your opinion on the KIIT University?
We have two accredited institutions in India now. They are KIIT University, Bhubaneswar and SRM University, Chennai. One is in the north and the other in the south. AMITY and BIT are in the process of renewal of their accreditation. Twelve new Indian academic institutions have applied to IET and we are processing them. KIIT is the first institution in Odisha which has got the accreditation. KIIT is moving rightly from the domain of a traditional knowledge based institute to the higher level of “Ability-based institute”. It shall become a national hub in education and shall contribute to the development of Odisha and east India.
What was KIIT University’s national accreditation status? Why did you choose for IET international accreditation?
Dr Samanta: KITT University has obtained A – Grade status accreditation from Indian National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) which assesses higher education institutions. KITT University has also been accredited by NBA( National Board of Accreditation). We have been relentlessly providing quality education to our students. We wanted to enhance our quality benchmark from national to the international level. Therefore we applied for international accreditation of BTech courses. It shall improve our quality of education. Besides, the international accreditation shall help our students to access international jobs or get scope for higher studies worldwide.
What’s the procedure that KIIT University went through to secure IET accreditation?
Dr Samanta: IET accreditation is a tough process. It was easy for us to get the accreditation because we have been already operating at a higher quality level.
We further ungraded our courses and Institute for last two to three years. We made improvements in pedagogy, syllabus, and examination pattern and so on. The KIIT University was recently accredited by the IET and our B.Tech. programmes such as Electronics and Communications, Electrical and Electronics, Computer Science, Information Technology and Mechanical Engineering are now IET-accredited. KITT University is always committed to quality education and international accreditation is one more step in this direction.