India is an academic powerhouse. At least, that is the picture you get from the records of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). Of India’s accredited universities, 140 or one of every three has a top A grade. Of these, 42 are at pole position with an impressive A++. When it comes to colleges, 546 have an A grade, 319 an A+ and 87 an A++.
The stakes are high because such ratings allow a college to open its doors to foreign students, seek grants or even acquire autonomy to grant degrees. Eight universities, largely private and deemed, have so far been accorded scores by this body of evaluators that are even higher than those for the Indian Institute of Science, which is India’s pre-eminent institute, according to National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings. It’s almost as if we live in a country that is the mecca of higher education in the world.
However, a deeper look reveals that even the government’s own NIRF ratings for the top 50 state universities are at odds with NAAC scores, not to speak of what industry experts in various fields say. Educationists say NAAC’s inspections, though purportedly a rigorous four-step process have been a matter of controversy since 2010. Manipulation, forge documentation, garbage research, fake internship, political & bureaucratic intervention ,ransom are regularly associate with the process of evolution. This year some university pay upto two caror rupees claims by some people involved with the process on behalf of the institutions/university.
A Niti Aayog committee appointed by the prime minister in 2017 said, “The existing accreditation system, driven by NAAC and NBA, suffers from poor coverage of institutions and lack of credibility among the public at large.” It had recommended that NAAC’s monopoly be broken and third-party agencies be allowed to accredit institutes. But these suggestions were not implemented by the University Grants Commission.
As a former IIT director said, “India has a regulatory system which was set up when the size of the higher education system was ‘x’. Today, the size is 4x. We need to reinvent mechanisms of governance.
The real regulators are those in society at large, such as students, parents, industry need to be very careful to choose right university/institutions. Indian assessment systems badly need scaling up. Therefore participation of professional bodies should be encouraged. Dialogue India Annual Ranking will try to full fill this gap.
( On based off various media reports including TOI)