Achieving Quality in Higher Education: Road to Academic Excellence in Graduate and Post-Graduate Institution of Jammu and Kashmir

Quality education in higher learning has become a serious concern as the system has been grappling with improper academic support and infrastructure quality. Past researches in higher education has focussed more on physical infrastructure as prerequisite for improving service quality performance but not much research has been done on course content, teaching-learning process, and the basic methodologies of imparting knowledge and understanding of the students needs. In this research, modified SERVPERF has been used to explore the variables that are essential in improving service quality of Govt. Degree College, udhampur. Five service quality dimensions namely, tangibles, reliability, empathy, professor and career guidance were correlated and also an effect of categorical variable i.e., twenty graduates and post-graduates each was observed on aforesaid service quality dimensions using t-test. Correlations between variables explain that knowledge base of a teachers contributes largely in lesson preparation, designing evaluation, improving communication skills, enhancing students responses and efforts, coverage of courses, relating courses with real life examples, improving explanations of each content precisely and consequently improving the overall service quality of higher educational institutions. Moderate to low correlations explain that inaccessibility of teachers is the main cause of less interaction between students and teachers and lack of guidance and advice given to the students. Further high level of compatibility of the respondents in the ‘usage of IT’ and ‘involvement of students in teaching-learning process’ actually contributes towards increasing service quality in govt. degree colleges. The results explained significant differences in the mean responses of graduates and post-graduates towards preparation of teachers, knowledge base and accessibility of teachers in the institutions of higher learning. The SERVPERF scale was found to explain a great deal of the variation in service quality and doesn't cater to the needs of faculty in assessing some of the non-academic aspects, reputation, access, programme issues and understanding. Further research shall be conducted based on HEDPERF scale for ensuring wider coverage and better assessment of service quality performance for strategic decision-making.