The Wiley International Handbook of Mentoring

20Mentoring Faculty for Quality Enhancement in Indian Higher Education

Ankur Gupta

Model Institute of Engineering and Technology, Jammu, India

The Indian Higher Education (IHE) sector has been facing intense criticism from all quarters for its lack of quality outcomes as measured against global standards. Industry bodies such as NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies, 2014) have consistently published damaging reports on the percentage of employable graduates produced by the higher education sector, ranging from 18 to 26% for different job roles in the IT sector. Government agencies, review committee reports (University Grants Commission, 2015; Yashpal Committee Report, 2011), and even international agencies (British Council, 2014) have pointed out the lacunae and challenges confronting the sector from time to time, including the supply‐demand gap in manpower, faculty quality, research quality, student disengagement, and lack of curricular reforms. In Higher Technical Education, alone, around 50% of the available seats remained vacant in 2018, resulting in the closure of several institutions across the country. Rapid expansion of the sector and opening of a plethora of private institutions in the last 10 years is often cited as a major reason for the dilution of quality standards (University Grants Commission, 2008). With the Government setting an ambitious Gross Enrollment Ration (GER) target of 30% against the current GER of 20%, the challenges in ...