IDC launches two new initiatives to foster design in India

On 12th December, the Indian Design Council (IDC) launched the Design Education Quality Mark (DEQM) and the Chartered Designers of India (CDI). This initiative by the IDC will help the country to address five challenges –quality of design, scale, design for a public purpose, priority for design in industry and quality of education for design.

The step is taken to support the professionals in the design industry to distinguish the professional designers against those who are non-professionals and hobbyists. Recently, India has witnessed a rapid growth in the design industry which has resulted in the creation of new employment avenues in the area of creative skills. While announcing the new development, the Ministry of Commerce & Industry in a press conference said that the design industry would be the key drivers in the Make in India initiative 2020.

In 2007, India joined the list of few of the countries across the world to adopt National Design Policy (NDP) and established IDC in 2009. Established under the aegis of the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce & Industry –the IDC is a strategic body for multi-disciplinary design. It is involved in the promotion of design to make India a design enabled country.

The two initiatives – DEQM and CDI are expected to aid and support the growth of the design profession. These initiatives will establish professional standards, benchmarks in the design education programs on already set standards and will accord Design Education Quality Mark to institutions. DEQM will give DEQ mark to the institutions which meet the quality and standard as prescribed under the Quality Code.

The Quality Mark the institute will carry, it will indicate a minimum level of quality and standards analysed through a neutral review process by a third party. The Quality Mark includes a trademark-protected logo, which could be used by the recipient institutions in all forms of internal and external communication.

The Quality Code is expected to create the guiding framework that has been structured on the UK Quality Code for Higher Education published by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education, UK.