Criterion 1 asks a department to say what it is for, to show that it decided this deliberately rather than by inheritance, and to demonstrate that the people affected actually know it. The EC department answers with a Vision and four Mission statements adopted in February 2017, four Program Educational Objectives adopted the following month, and a formal review of all of them against NEP 2020 in September–October 2022.
The department's case rests on three things being true at once: the statements exist and are visible everywhere a stakeholder might look; they are appropriate to a diploma-level EC programme rather than generic; and they descend consistently from the institute's own Vision and Mission rather than contradicting them. Sub-criteria 1.1 to 1.3 establish those. Sub-criteria 1.4 and 1.5 then show the process behind them and close the loop by mapping every PEO back onto a Mission element.
The official breakdown for Criterion 1, totalling 50 marks.
| No. | Sub-criterion | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | State the Vision and Mission of the Department & Institution | 5 |
| A | Availability of the Vision & Mission statements of the Department | 1 |
| B | Appropriateness/Relevance of the Statements | 2 |
| C | Consistency of the Department statements with the Institute statements | 2 |
| 1.2 | State the Program Educational Objectives (PEOs) | 5 |
| 1.3 | Indicate where and how the Vision, Mission and PEOs are published and disseminated among stakeholders | 10 |
| A | Adequacy in respect of publication & dissemination | 2 |
| B | Process of dissemination among stakeholders | 2 |
| C | Extent of awareness of Vision, Mission & PEOs among the stakeholders | 6 |
| 1.4 | State the process for defining the Vision and Mission of the Department, and PEOs of the program | 15 |
| A | Description of process for defining the Vision, Mission of the Department | 7 |
| B | Description of process for defining the PEOs of the program | 8 |
| 1.5 | Establish consistency of PEOs with Mission of the Department | 15 |
| A | Preparation of a matrix of mapping PEOs and elements of Mission statement | 5 |
| B | Consistency/justification of mapping of the matrix | 10 |
| Total — Criterion 1 | 50 | |
The institute's Vision is to produce competent diploma engineers as per the need of industries and entrepreneurs with ethical values. The department's Vision narrows that to its own discipline: to prepare competent diploma-level electronics and communication engineers, catering to the needs of industries and society as an excellent employee, innovator and entrepreneur with moral values.
Four Mission statements carry the Vision into operational strategy — one each for teaching quality, for infrastructure and faculty capability, for industry linkage, and for the co-curricular and value-forming side of the programme.
Availability is argued by showing the statements in every place a stakeholder encounters the department. They appear on the institute website and the department's own site, on the notice board and in the corridor, in the HOD office, in every laboratory and classroom, in the academic calendar, in course files and lab manuals, in the departmental newsletter, and in the e-mail signature every faculty member sends from.
The point of listing so many surfaces is that none of them is occasional: a student meets the statements in the room they study in and in the manual they work from, and an external correspondent meets them in the footer of any departmental e-mail.
Appropriateness is argued on the content of the statements rather than their existence. The Vision is read as clear and aspirational (technical competence, innovation, employability and ethics are the attributes a diploma engineer actually needs), future-oriented and stakeholder-centric (it names industry and society as the audience), and pitched at the right level — practical skills and employability rather than research outcomes a diploma programme cannot claim.
The Mission statements are then justified as the operational half of the pair: M1 specifies pedagogy, M2 infrastructure and faculty development, M3 industry connect, and M4 value-based development. Read together they are what would have to be true for the Vision to be achieved, which is the test the SAR applies to them.
The department also maps the Vision and each Mission element onto the three limbs of outcome-based education — outcome-based curriculum, outcome-based teaching and learning, and outcome-based assessment — so that appropriateness is demonstrated against the OBE framework the rest of the SAR is scored on.
| Outcome based curriculum | Outcome based teaching & learning | Outcome based assessment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vision | Identifies attributes required in an EC diploma engineer to meet industrial and societal needs. | Focused on lifelong learning; student-centric; aims at apply–analyze–solve engineering problems. | Ensures students use knowledge and skills professionally — problem solving, designing experiments, communication. |
| M1 — Quality EC education | Focus on imparting EC core knowledge and its application. | Tools and methods enabling students to learn all aspects of EC as diploma engineers. | Criteria-based assessments demonstrating achievement of outcomes. |
| M2 — Labs, classrooms and faculty development | Framework for collaborative curriculum planning and improvement. | Enhancement of teaching–learning quality through student-centric processes in classrooms and laboratories, by qualified faculty. | Measures technical skills through quizzes, laboratories and project-based learning. |
| M3 — Industry liaison | Curriculum aligned to industrial needs, with industry experts involved in design and review. | Correlates student learning with industry via visits, workshops, expert seminars and startup initiatives such as SSIP. | Articulates knowledge and practical skills gained from internships and projects. |
| M4 — Co- and extra-curricular activities and values | Includes activities encouraging innovation, moral values and entrepreneurship in departmental planning. | Activities under the gymkhana and departmental cells; student-led technical events building innovation, entrepreneurship and teamwork. | Assesses innovation, entrepreneurship and values through quality of participation and performance. |
SAR Table 1.1.1
Consistency is shown element by element rather than asserted. The institute Vision breaks into four claims — competent diploma engineers, as per the need of industries and entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial orientation, and ethical values — and each is matched against the corresponding phrase in the department Vision. The department's statement is a specialisation of the institute's into the EC domain, extended in one respect only: where the institute names industries and entrepreneurs, the department also names society.
The Mission statements are mapped as a 4×4 matrix against the institute's four Mission elements, scored 0 to 3. Strong correlations concentrate where they should: departmental M1 (quality education) against industry-oriented education and teaching–learning environment; M3 (industry interaction) against industry-oriented education and entrepreneurship; M4 (activities and values) against entrepreneurship and core human values. The matrix also records honest zeros — M2 (infrastructure and faculty) claims no direct contribution to developing core human values, and M3 claims none either.
The chapter closes by testing the same statements against the frameworks the department answers to outside NBA — GTU's mission and core values, AICTE's mission, the Gujarat CTE's mission, and the focus areas of NEP 2020 — rather than against the institute alone.
| Dept \ Institute Mission | Industry oriented technical education | Excellent teaching and learning environment | Promote entrepreneurship activities | Continual growth by developing core human values |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DM1 — Quality education | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| DM2 — Infrastructure & faculty | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| DM3 — Industry interaction | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| DM4 — Activities & values | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
SAR Table 1.1.3. 3 — substantial, 2 — moderate, 1 — slight, 0 — no direct contribution.
The four PEOs describe what a graduate should have achieved a few years after leaving, not at the point of exit. They cover professional career, further study, ethical conduct and adaptability — deliberately kept to four, and deliberately short.
Each is justified in the SAR against a specific external anchor: PEO1 against NBA's outcome-based focus and the hands-on orientation of diploma education; PEO2 against NEP and AICTE progression pathways; PEO3 against the NBA graduate attributes covering ethics and societal responsibility; PEO4 against the need to track emerging technology such as IoT, AI and 5G.
Publication and dissemination are treated as two different obligations. Publication is about surfaces — where the statements can be found. Dissemination is about occasions — when someone is actually walked through them. The department documents both, and then treats awareness as a third thing again, to be demonstrated rather than assumed.
Six publication channels are recorded, each with the stakeholder group it reaches. Between them they cover global access (the two websites), physical presence in the department, the documents students work from daily, and outbound correspondence.
| # | Place of dissemination | Stakeholders reached |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Institute and departmental websites (gppalanpur.ac.in, ec.gppalanpur.ac.in) | Internal and external — global access |
| 2 | Department notice board and head office | Internal and external |
| 3 | Department laboratories and classrooms | Internal |
| 4 | Orientation programme and parent–teacher meetings | Internal and external |
| 5 | Curriculum documents — course files, lab manuals | Internal |
| 6 | Departmental newsletter and e-mail signatures | Internal and external |
SAR Table 1.3.1
For internal stakeholders the process is tied to the academic cycle rather than to a single event. Newly admitted students are briefed at induction; faculty restate the alignment of Course Outcomes with the departmental Mission in the introductory lecture of every course; and every lab manual and course file opens with the statements, so the reminder recurs each time a student picks up the document.
For external stakeholders the occasions are parent–teacher meetings, industry–institute interaction, and alumni meets. Each has a distinct purpose in the SAR's argument: parents to align their support with departmental goals, industry to confirm the objectives match what employers recruit for, and alumni to validate whether the programme actually prepared them.
The department also records what each stakeholder group contributes back — students through course and programme exit surveys, faculty and the DQAC through CO–PO mapping and curriculum inputs, industry through internships and guest lectures, alumni through curriculum feedback, mentoring and placement contacts.
This sub-point carries 6 marks — three times either of the other two under 1.3 — because publication establishes access while awareness has to be demonstrated. The department treats each stakeholder group as a distinct audience and records, for each, the occasion of engagement and the evidence that the engagement produced understanding rather than mere exposure.
The strongest claim made is about students: senior students present the Vision and Mission to their peers themselves, in classroom sessions the students conduct. The SAR argues this is a demonstration of understanding, since a student cannot present a statement they have only seen on a wall.
Alumni are singled out as the group best placed to judge PEO attainment, because the PEOs describe achievement some years after graduation. Their responses on curriculum relevance are collected at alumni meets and by e-mail and carried into the review process described in 1.4 — which is how the awareness evidence feeds back into the statements themselves.
| Stakeholder | Occasion of engagement | Evidence of awareness |
|---|---|---|
| Students (entry) | Induction / orientation programme at admission | Statements presented and explained to every incoming batch |
| Students (continuing) | Introductory lecture of every course; lab manuals and course files | Faculty relate Course Outcomes to the departmental Mission; statements open every course file |
| Students (senior) | Classroom sessions conducted by students | Students themselves present the Vision and Mission to their peers |
| Parents | Parent–teacher meetings | Statements presented to parents alongside student progress |
| Alumni | Alumni meets and e-mail correspondence | Alumni review the statements and respond on curriculum relevance |
| Industry | Industry–institute interaction, expert lectures, industrial visits | Statements shared with partners to confirm objectives match professional requirements |
SAR Table 1.3.3
The process is documented as a dated sequence rather than a narrative, which is what lets an evaluator check it. Three cycles are recorded: defining the Vision and Mission (January–February 2017), defining the PEOs and PSOs (February–March 2017), and reviewing all of them against NEP 2020 (September–October 2022).
| Stage | Date |
|---|---|
| SWOT analysis with internal and external stakeholders | 16–23 Jan 2017 |
| Vision and Mission draft prepared by DQAC | 2 Feb 2017 |
| Draft reviewed by stakeholders | 4 Feb 2017 |
| Feedback analysed | 10 Feb 2017 |
| Vision and Mission finalised with stakeholders present | 18 Feb 2017 |
| PEO and PSO draft prepared by DQAC | 23 Feb 2017 |
| Draft reviewed by stakeholders | 4 Mar 2017 |
| Feedback analysed | 9 Mar 2017 |
| PEOs and PSOs finalised with stakeholders present | 10 Mar 2017 |
| PEOs mapped to Mission elements | 10 Mar 2017 |
| DQAC meeting justifying the PEO–Mission mapping | 15 Mar 2017 |
| Dissemination among stakeholders | 18 Mar 2017 |
| Review of all statements against NEP 2020 by DQAC | 15 Sep 2022 |
| Review by stakeholders | 17 Sep 2022 |
| Feedback analysed | 23 Sep 2022 |
| Reviewed statements finalised and disseminated | 1 Oct 2022 |
SAR Table 1.4.1
The 2017 cycle opened with a SWOT analysis conducted with faculty, students, alumni and industry experts between 16 and 23 January. Its findings are reproduced in the SAR without softening: alongside well-qualified faculty, well-equipped laboratories, placement support and affordable government education, the department recorded lower-quality infrastructure and low communication skills among students as weaknesses, and few electronics and telecom industries in the region, declining student interest in the EC branch, and low-merit intake as threats.
The DQAC synthesised those findings into a draft on 2 February 2017, working within two constraints: the institute's own Vision and Mission, to preserve vertical consistency, and the regulatory benchmarks of AICTE, NBA, DTE and GTU. The draft was reviewed by stakeholders on 4 February and adopted at a final approval meeting on 18 February.
The 2022 review was triggered by NEP 2020. The DQAC re-read the statements against NEP's focus areas on 15 September 2022, took stakeholder input on 17 September, and concluded on 1 October that the existing statements were already in line with the policy — so they were reaffirmed rather than rewritten, and disseminated again. The SAR carries the consistency tables that support that conclusion, mapping each clause of the Vision and each Mission element onto a specific NEP theme.
PEO drafting deliberately followed the adoption of the Vision and Mission rather than running in parallel: the DQAC began on 23 February 2017, five days after the Mission was adopted, so that the PEOs were derived from it. The initial set was built around three themes — professional career progression, academic pursuit and lifelong learning, and social responsibility and ethical practice.
The draft went to stakeholders on 4 March 2017 and was finalised on 10 March. On the same day the department carried out the PEO–Mission mapping exercise, verifying that every Mission statement is supported by at least one PEO — the check that makes the two sets a single strategy rather than two lists. The DQAC then documented the justification for each cell of that matrix on 15 March, and the PEOs were disseminated on 18 March.
Criterion 1 closes by requiring the department to prove the link it asserted in 1.4: that the PEOs actually follow from the Mission. It does so with a correlation matrix and then a written justification for every cell of it.
The matrix scores each of the four PEOs against each of the four Mission elements on a 1–3 scale. The values are not the department's own judgement alone — the SAR records that the matrix was built from stakeholder input, with the entered figure being the average of the mappings the stakeholders produced.
The distribution is what a coherent strategy would predict. PEO1 (professional career, innovation and entrepreneurship) correlates substantially with quality education, industry liaison and the co-curricular Mission alike. PEO2 (higher education) leans on the academic and infrastructure elements. PEO3 (societal and ethical responsibility) is strongest against M4, the values Mission, and weakest against M2, infrastructure — the department records a 1 there rather than inflating it.
| PEO | M1 Quality education | M2 Labs, classrooms, faculty | M3 Industrial liaison | M4 Activities & values |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PEO1 — Professional career, innovation and entrepreneurship | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| PEO2 — Pursue higher education | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| PEO3 — Societal and ethical responsibility | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| PEO4 — Adapt to technological change | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
SAR Table 1.5.1. 3 — substantial, 2 — moderate, 1 — slight, “–” — no correlation.
Every cell of the matrix carries a written justification, so the score is defended rather than declared. The reasoning runs consistently in one direction: a Mission element earns a 3 against a PEO only where it is the direct mechanism by which that PEO is achieved.
So M1 scores 3 against PEO1 and PEO2 because technical education is what makes both a professional career and further study possible; M2 scores 1 against PEO3 because infrastructure plays only an indirect role in ethical development; M4 scores 3 against PEO3 because moral values are inculcated through exactly those activities. Where the department could have claimed more, the justification text says plainly that the contribution is limited or indirect.
Criterion 1 runs from page 28 of the SAR. Every figure above is taken from the report; where a figure is not stated in the SAR it is not given here.
