Programme Indexing as a Governance Mechanism in Higher Education: Conceptualising an Under-theorised Construct
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2026.v11.n10.004Keywords:
programme indexing, higher education governance, classification, accountability, transparency, qualifications frameworks, NEP 2020Abstract
Higher education systems now offer far more academic programmes, in more forms, than the arrangements used to describe them were built to handle. Students, regulators, accreditors and partner institutions all need to know what a programme is, at what level it sits, what it is worth in credit and whether it is approved. In most systems they assemble that knowledge from scattered prospectuses, statutes and websites. This article argues that programme indexing, the systematic identification, classification, description, maintenance and disclosure of the programmes an institution offers, is a governance mechanism in its own right rather than a clerical by-product of administration. It draws on four bodies of theory: classification theory, the political theory of state legibility, accountability and transparency scholarship, and new institutional theory. From these, the article (a) offers a bounded definition of the construct and separates it from catalogues, curricula, quality-assurance documentation and management information systems; (b) identifies five mechanisms through which indexing shapes governance: legibility, commensuration, coordination, account-giving and portability; (c) proposes a typology of four indexing regimes: fragmented, ceremonial, localised and integrated; and (d) advances seven testable propositions. The Indian case illustrates the stakes. The National Education Policy 2020, the Academic Bank of Credits and the National Higher Education Qualifications Framework all presuppose comparable programme data that many institutions do not yet hold. The article closes with a research agenda and a caution against treating indexing as a neutral technical fix.
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