If you read the objective of NAAC it talks of (a) quality assurance (b) quality promotion. Does it deliver on “quality promotion” ? Perhaps, NOT for the struggling low quality private colleges. The input of poor performance is not captured and no government funding institution comes for the needed help to uplift the standard.
Private institutes in India are largely at their own. They experience a host of binding regulations, fee restrictions, intake restrictions, diminishing research funding, no infra n’ intellectual development funds, a rare students’ scholarship support in some rural states. Contrary to this, in some States, affiliated private colleges end up paying a certain fee to their respective State affiliating universities.
Accreditation n’ ranking serves an exercise for validating existing data and rewards institutions on what quality has already been achieved on the pre-set parameters, but doesn’t bother about what HEIs are suffering from and little care for their future plans to emerge from the challenging situations. As for the Ministry, let them close or merge with some others, if they find them financially unviable. While such a policy is in keeping with a near universal phenomenon for the private owned, the fact remains that the case of India having larger percentage of population below the age of 35, badly needs immediate skilling which can best happen if government as well as private institutions contribute to this compelling need side by side to skill and develop India and also meet the national GER 50 ratio. Don’t help the rich sponsors n’ founders but do help the genuinely less resourceful who wish to serve. At least give them a very low interest funding on case to case basis.
So briefly put, accreditation is currently an audit of existing quality, but not promotion of academic quality. B’cause NAAC or NIRF is not adding any value to the nearly 30 thousand odd struggling institutes, mostly in the rural poor India, accreditation and ranking is just a meaningless exercise in futility for these colleges, barring a few. There are no hard benefits. The top-graded and ranked HEIs however receive a shot in the arm receiving graded autonomy for growth, expansion, foreign collaborations, enhanced research funding and implicitly attracting enhanced students’ admissions. Who will then care for the struggling colleges and struggling youth from the disadvantaged sections of society?
-Prof JR Sharma. The views expressed are personal
