National Accreditation and Assessment has become necessary, or one must say inescapable for our educational institutions of higher learning. The university grants commission (UGC) has caught hold of our neck under the pretext of NAAC and the funding for our institutions is harmonious to the grade given by the peer team. So we have to gear up as a responsible stakeholder and get our institution (College/University) accredited so that we can survive and develop our institution for imparting quality education to our students which is of course going to give us a better future. Here I would like to debate some ramifications of this affair which might prove terribly counter productive for our institutions.
1. Composing our institutions NAAC aligned only: Needless to say, that the sole motive of our educational institutions is topromulgate quality education and to create good human resource in the shape ofour students. The student, undoubtedly, should be our priority. Butunfortunately NAAC inspects everything except teaching; there is a clause withacademic auditing but that too does not define the level of teaching beingexercised in an educational institution. The main thrust instead has been putupon research, e – learning, alumni association, e – resources, outreachprogrammes, skill development courses, etc. Apropos research, everybody can’t be Albert Einstein, Ramanujan or MirzaGhalib. It is meaningless to expect everybody to be of that eminence, but aminimum level is to be maintained. We as researchers should not be contributoryto breeding mediocrity in our system or society. Most unfortunate thing is thatwe believe in numbers and prefer quantity over quality . Under the pretext of e– learning we invest a hefty amount of our money for constructing smart classrooms etc., which remain unutilized and the money gets wasted. Skill basedcourses is a main constituent so far as the accreditation is concerned, to myown understanding higher education is not for attaining skill it is foracquiring knowledge, enlightenment, wisdom, emancipation, for inculcating asprit of asking questions and ingraining scientific/research temperament. I amnot trying to invalidate the essence of these facets. But I am trying toprioritize things, and to describe how we should make the optimal use of ourresources. We aspire for getting good grades from the peer team and that iswhat should strive for. But not at thecost of something which is comparably of greater value, what if we don’t get avery good grade, we will not get enough funding! Will it still be viable to runour institutions smoothly or the survival is in danger?. The bottom lineis: lets not waste our time and energyfor getting grades, but focus on to do good in teaching, try to motivate,inspire our students towards learningand try to kindle a thirst (what Iqbal puts as ‘iztiraab’) in them for seeking knowledge.
2. Getting carried away by a good grade: Looking at thegenesis of the NAAC accreditation, one can say it is a fight between pygmiesnot the giants. The accreditation by National Accreditation and AssessmentCouncil takes place amongst the universities. The institutions of the countrysuch as, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Indian Institute ofScience (IISC) at Bangalore the ISI’s, other research institutes and the IITs which undoubtedly are doing much better(than the universities) in teaching and research neither come under theprerogative of UGC nor under this accreditation enterprise. So if we get areasonably good grade from NAAC we have every reason to celebrate but not toget overwhelmed which may result in false confidence and we forget to proceedin the direction of furtherance. Recently our university got re-accredited andfortunately we got a better grade to the previous one. We should be consistent with this workculture and the lofty gradation motivation for putting our maximum. This energyand synergy should be be within our university culture. We were rewarded forour hard work and we have every reason to celebrate it.
But there are things we should and have to ponder upon. Itseems like the university administration is adopting ‘hit and trial’ method sofor as our academic policies are concerned where the stakeholders are ourstudents. I don’t find any logic behind the (MCQ paper) examination scheme forour undergrad courses. The student support is not adequate within the premisesthey are not treated nicely by the university officers/officials. In a recentUG finals year results around two hundred students asked for the xerox copy oftheir answer scripts and got their result changed. The meetings of the board ofstudies/research studies don’t take place in a well organised manner whichproves cataclysmic for the environment. The board of research studies meeting(BORS) happens only once in a blue moon (it took place only once in fiveyears), proper suggestions are notsought (through deliberations) in the PG/UG board of studies meeting. Theseissues are to be dealt with seriously. NAAC means a lot to us but not everything.We get funding which is important for a university to run but what is moreimportant is our students. We have to invest our time and energy for gettinggood grades but what is more important is an inspiring teacher. We publish agood number of research papers but what is more important is quality research.We award degrees/ research degrees but what is more important is the placementof our outgoing students. These are the things we should think upon.