Quality Enhancement in Education in Asian Perspective
The present era can be called an era of 'academic globalization' as the number of students aspiring and seeking foreign education is increasing. With the increasing globalization of economies, the globalization of higher education is inevitable. Now-a-days every country of the world, more specifically Asian countries, are concerned about the quality of their education. It is mainly because of the changing economic circumstances globally. The economic development of a country depends to a large extent on the quality of education being imparted to its citizens. Education is not an ordinary concept. It has got its philosophical implications. The word "education" in the ordinary sense of the term means literacy, formal education, getting through examinations and acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge, however, does not mean bookish knowledge, but one studied with noble feelings and values of life such as power and virtue.
The objective of education should not be the learning or teaching of social, physical, biological, engineering or medical sciences, but the growth of body, mind and the soul. It should be a manifestation of the inner personality. Quality in education is a continuous process. Teaching is a noble activity. It involves a great deal of sacrifices and total commitment to the welfare of the students. Teaching is an art. Presentation of material is the style of the art. Producing quality in teaching is the essence of the art. Teaching well means helping students learn well by producing good quality of materials. Teaching's major components are content, communication and feedback. Teaching programmes must be allowed sufficient flexibility to accept injection of new information, opinion or analysis so that the excitement felt by the teacher for the subject can be brought to the students. Nonetheless, there must be a transparent structure underlying the teaching programmes, the modules of which they are composed and the teaching, learning and assessment methods employed, so that the staff, current students and prospective students are all clear as to what is expected of them.
Many educational institutions throughout the world, specifically Asian countries, are reeling from the effects of unprecedented rates of change, including factors such as growing student numbers without commensurate growth of staffing, an increasingly diverse student population, the demand to be seen as cost-effective, within frameworks more properly applied to commercial businesses than to educational institutions, increasing control by the funding authorities and, above all, staff who are often demoralized, stressed, and overworked as they try to maintain the quality of what they do, while the circumstances in which they work change etc. This paper tries to design guidelines for quality assurance and enhancement in teaching.