An Evaluative Study on Challenges in Quality Assurance in Fashion Design Courses in India

Abstract

Presently, leaders of higher educational institutions in India are confronting a monumental task of ensuring the exceptional quality in the current educational system. The competition from graduates across the emerging economies has attained an all-time high. It is crucial that the institutions involved in higher education in high potential courses like fashion design and technology needs genuine introspection to ensure that an efficient quality assurance system is in place to offer quality services to their key stakeholders. In order to keep up with industry and market changes, Fashion Technology courses in India have undergone significant transformations in recent years. This study aims to evaluate the significance of different factors that are influencing the quality of higher education in India. Specifically, the study has identified and refined the challenging factors in ensuring quality in fashion design and technology courses. As an outcome of an extensive review of literature and insights obtained from industry experts and academic professionals, nine quality assurance factors were identified that are theorized to affect the quality assurance in fashion education programs. The factors identified and included for final analysis included “Quality of Faculty Members”, “Policies and Frameworks” for growth and promotion, “Infrastructural Resources” for development of fashion design education, “Funding and Support” for sustained development, “Leadership Support”, “Facilities“ for learning and research, “Accreditation System” for continuous assessment and evaluation, “Employability of Graduates” and “Innovation” in curricular offering and teaching and learning system on a continual basis. Data were collected from six hundred professionals (both industry and academia) representing fashion design and technology industry. Statistical measures like descriptive statistics, relative importance index (RII), Independent Sample t-test and One way ANOVA were performed. The study highlights the role of different challenging factors impacting the quality of fashion design and technology programs. The findings have significant implications for educational leaders and different stakeholders to enhance quality assurance in higher education in general and fashion technology courses in particular.