Reframing teacher evaluation in higher education: a three-pillar framework from Assam

Abstract

Teacher evaluation shapes the quality of classroom instruction and, through it, student learning outcomes; yet in Indian higher education the dominant single-source model, student feedback channeled through the internal quality assurance cell (IQAC), is widely critiqued as ritualistic and developmentally inert. To the authors’ knowledge, no prior study has integrated student feedback, structured self-evaluation, and peer review into a coherent operational framework for regional Global South contexts. Drawing on primary data collected between 2009 and 2025 from approximately 200 undergraduate arts and science students, principally at North Lakhimpur College (now North Lakhimpur University) and other institutions across Assam, this study employs a qualitative-descriptive design with thematic analysis and triangulation of open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Two contributions emerge. First, it yields a culturally grounded fivefold taxonomy of good teaching from Assamese student articulations, including culturally distinctive expectations: the teacher’s public moral role in the community and the obligation of intellectual life beyond the syllabus, that standardized student evaluation of teaching (SET) instruments routinely miss. Second, it proposes a developmental three-pillar framework integrating reformed student feedback, disciplined teacher self-evaluation, and structured peer review to restore the formative function of evaluation and improve student learning outcomes. Both the taxonomy and the framework are scalable across comparable institutions in the Global South.