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Libraries are the real centres of learning. The realisation of the objectives of education will be possible only with an adequately conceived system of libraries. The objectives of higher education are:

In the present era, government colleges in Punjab are facing cutthroat competition on three fronts, i.e. financial constraints and insufficiency of government grants, falling number of students and the shortage of teaching staff in the colleges because of stiff competition and other reasons. Thus, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the resource use efficiency of government colleges in Punjab.

The study covered 15 general degree government colleges from various districts of Punjab. Secondary data for the study were collected from financial budgets, income and expenditure statements and self study reports of the colleges. The data envelopment analysis was conducted using the CCR model and BCC model.

The technical efficiency results suggest that colleges analyzed in this study are operating at a moderate level of efficiency relative to each other. Most of the colleges were found to be inefficient during the study period. Only one college was found consistently efficient during all the years of the study. Moreover, input and output slacks exist in many of the colleges.

To achieve the efficiency level, the colleges need to improve their utilization of resources and the enrollment rate at a given level of resources. To increase the efficiency of the colleges, the Government of India needs to reform their budgeting system.

Punjab is a well-known state of India and public higher education sector plays important role in the education system. This research provides a new insight to the efficiency of the government colleges.

China has witnessed the emergence and rapid development of private higher education in the past three decades. As private higher education gradually takes on a more significant role in the Chinese educational system, due to the inability of the government to accommodate the growing demand for higher education, educational reform, influenced by the success of private higher education, will inevitably affect the quality and quantity of education overall.

This chapter focuses on several aspects of this development: the growth of private higher education in China, issues of finance and access, its relationship to the national system and to government policy, issues of ownership and the autonomy of private higher education, as well as the advantages and challenges of Chinese private higher education and the larger significance of its emergence in China. This study concludes that with proper management private colleges and universities will benefit from and contribute to Chinese society through multiple roles and responsibilities at their mature stage.

The purpose of the study is to measure the current or baseline institutional performance level of the Government and private engineering colleges in the state of West Bengal.

The study has been conducted on the basis of a survey. The feedback for this survey questionnaire has been considered independently for service providers such as administrators, faculties, other supporting staff as well as students who receive these services and are direct customers. A total of 2,168 persons have been surveyed from the 30 randomly selected colleges out of 70 colleges. The baseline or current performance level of the engineering colleges has been assessed based on the sigma level through quantification of the survey questionnaire consisting of eight enablers. Each enabler contains several questions or drivers. A total of 75 drivers have been arrived at for eight enablers. A seven‐point scale has been designed for each driver ranging from “Unsatisfactory” to “Outstanding”. To identify the weak areas for a college, the vital few drivers that correspond to “Unsatisfactory” performance have been made to take necessary remedial measures for attaining the new benchmark sigma level under the present techno‐economic set‐up.

The overall ratings (sigma levels) of engineering colleges in West Bengal range from 0.11 to 2.7, which is far away from the sigma level (4σ) of an average organization in the USA.

The paper is a purely original work. Instead of going by the popular perception of the Selection, Engineering and Technology, West Bengal, it is much better to categorize the colleges based on the class intervals of baseline sigma levels as demonstrated.

Incorporating student voice to improve both academic and institutional performances is the contemporary innovative way to enhance and ensure quality in higher education. Higher education organizations are developing a culture and an encouraging environment for the students where they can express their opinions and be an integral part and partner of educational improvement process. The purpose of this paper is to explore students preferred learning and teaching methods for management education, to study current intended learning outcome and practiced teaching methods, to investigate prerequisites to implement students expected teaching methods in the college-level management education of National University.

Nature of the study is exploratory and descriptive as well. Primary data were collected using focus group discussions, surveys conducted using structured and closed-ended questions and in-depth, face-to-face interviews employed to collect data from academic staff.

The key findings include the need for bringing changes in teaching techniques at college-level management education. Furthermore, the study has explored challenging issues which can hinder changes in teaching techniques.

The study pointed to the need of including student voice to keep improving teaching techniques that can satisfy students' learning needs continuously.

The study adds the body of knowledge on incorporating student voice to improve the quality of higher education teaching techniques and in other services as well in Bangladesh.

The growing professionalization of Malaysian industry over the past three decades, and the need for skilled business talent, have led to an increased demand for business education. This paper aims to examine how institutions in Malaysia have responded to this need.

This is a case study that synthesizes and organizes institutional experiences in delivering business education in Malaysia.

Malaysian academic institutions have responded to the demand for business education through a process modeled by the authors as a “cycle of business education” (CBE). The authors discuss institutional developments and competitive marketing strategies directed toward target markets during the five stages of the CBE.

The Malaysian experience in meeting business education needs can provide valuable guidance to educators and policy makers, among others, in developing countries engaged in similar initiatives. These countries can benefit from understanding more about institutional practices as well as from the problems that surfaced during the Malaysian CBE.

The paper makes an original contribution first by delineating and discussing the five stages of the cycle of business education (CBE), including institutional developments. Next it systematically articulates various components of the marketing strategies institutions use to deliver business education. Finally, recommendations are offered to improve the institutional provision and marketing of business education.

Written originally as a lecture for American students of tertiary educational administration, this essay traces the historical development of lay boards governing American universities and compares this with the current practice at an Australian university. The increasing influence of governmental bureaucracies in both countries is highlighted. The author, an American professor teaching as a visitor in Australia, takes a second look at the American policy of excluding faculty from governing boards. The presence of faculty members on the board could be a bulwark in the defense of academic freedom and institutional excellence.

This practitioner's chapter presents a “how-to” approach to establishing a college system that is decentralized and rooted in local communities, using the Thai system as an example. The Thai system “borrowed” programs from US community colleges – offering associate degrees, certificate programs, continuing education programs, and remedial education. While the author presents clear challenges that these institutions face, he is optimistic that the community college system is a positive aspect of the Thai higher education system.

This paper aims to discuss students’ assessment of quality related issues in engineering education in India.

The paper uses primary survey data of 1,178 undergraduate engineering students in Delhi, India, in 2009-2010. Students’ experience and views of four important aspects such as teaching methods used in the classroom, evaluation pattern, skills acquired by students during the course and the involvement of students in different activities other than classroom teaching are discussed using descriptive statistics and correlation to examine the quality issues.

The study finds that the lecture method is still dominant in the teaching and learning of engineering institutions compared to technical demonstration and laboratory work. Around half of the engineering students reported that they had never gone through any field work or industrial visits during their entire program of study. Involvement of students in the activities other than classroom teaching (e.g. working on research projects, attending engineering internships, studying a foreign language and opting for interdisciplinary courses) is more prevalent in government institutions compared to private institutions. The findings suggest that engineering institutions (particularly private colleges) should change their focus from traditional methods of teaching and evaluation of students to interactive methods of learning to improve the quality of technical education in India.

The literature reveals that the quality assessment of engineering and technical education in India is largely based on the information collected from stakeholders other than students. Therefore, this study contributes a new dimension to the existing literature by considering students’ assessment of the quality of engineering education.

At Question Time in the Commons, Sir Edward Boyle (Cons., Handsworth) asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he would take action on the recommendations of the Working Party on the Government of Colleges of Education.