How effective is NAAC?
K.H. PRABHU
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Barbarianism in educational institutions is the breeding ground of all our social evils
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IT IS a good beginning. But something more has to be done. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council has brought home to teachers and those who manage colleges that they cannot take everything for granted. They are made to realise that they are answerable to the authority that spends money on higher education.
Teachers in colleges that were adjudged Grade C are worried about their future and those in colleges that came under slightly higher grade are not free from the fear of their college getting downgraded during the next visit of the council.
As soon as colleges received intimation about the visit of the NAAC there was an atmosphere of Gogol's The Inspector General in a college where I worked. For the first time there was indexing of books in the library. Students were permitted to enter the prohibited area, the college library. Teachers and principals began to maintain records. Buildings were repaired and whitewashed. Signboards indicating many academic activities, though fake, appeared at various places in the college. Everything was stage-managed.
The members of the council arrived and they were kept in some kind of unlawful confinement. Their rooms were guarded and they were not allowed to move alone or meet anyone. The meeting with the parents was superficial. Ex-students were invited on a selective basis. Only such men were invited as would not divulge the truth about the college. The royal treatment the council members received was so grand that some principals coveted their position, tried for it and got it.
Can we take the judgments of the NAAC seriously? The principal of a college, which got B+, had two criminal cases in the magistrate's court and he had also given attendance in the police station for 30 days for good conduct. This was his record. The library of this college was looked after by a temporary clerk. There were more temporary teachers than the permanent ones on the staff.
In another college in which I had served the library was looked after by a retired clerk. There were some teachers who had been office-bearers in their caste associations. This college is adjudged B++.
The UGC should have some idea about the way colleges function and then decide the mode of operation of the NAAC and the penal provisions to be applied to erring institutions.
Averse to new ideas
There is a conflict between obscurantism and modernity in our educational set-up. Any attempt at educational reform should take it seriously. Barbarianism in educational institutions is the breeding ground of all our social evils. A large number of educational institutions are run by maths, concealed ideological organisations and caste associations.
They are averse to new ideas and hostile to any challenge to the old, worn out values. The library is maintained to fulfil the affiliation conditions where the staff members are not permitted to sit and read. They are not permitted to participate in faculty improvement programmes such as refresher course and orientation course. A good passing percentage is all they expect from their teachers. They are indifferent to the means adopted to achieve this end.
It would be better if the scope of the NAAC is widened by making it an academic ombudsman headed by retired High Court judges.
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