Much ado about NAAC

As a child, I always had the deep disgust for the exaggeration and show off that happens at the arrival of the guests. Their welcome, whether willingly or reluctantly is completely artificial: new cups, new bed sheets and new everything will be there to impress. A guest may not be worth all that; however we would still waste much of resources and energy.

This practice is not only practiced in our family lives but our great education system .I remember, in our school whenever CBSE team came for inspection, the school management got ignited. They made everything look grand .Why we attempt to look grand, when actually we were petty? May be we are petty that‘s why we attempt to appear grand. Morning assemblies were made grand. The Back black board which otherwise was either black or was used by people like me who wanted to write somewhere other than notebooks, was made epicenter of wisdom, knowledge and intellect. The bulletin boards often laden with dust were draped with colorful chart papers. They were bombarded with creative, informative stuff. Yes the school was made museum, where everything was for display and everything put to show. So CBSE came to rate institution on this basis, education was always secondary .No wonder why we never really came out of our didactic teaching and schooling. They never checked years of assault has made students just machines. The machine that was efficient (had great family background, every facility, nutritious food) was always the winner. I disliked one thing about school the focus on bright children. They were the stars; no matter those stars were just glowing gases nothing concrete in them. In school only strong won, the weak always lost. Why country is not inclusive, because our foundation is not inclusive. We train our kids to come first, maybe he is at his best when comes the last and stays original. We may train him to come first, but then he never remains original. He is lost. To produce a mediocre product we lose  an extraordinary sports person or artist.

All this reverberated in my mind ever since National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) came to our university .The moment I entered my department their arrival could be read with poster saying “Welcome NAAC and the peer team”. Trumpets of welcome could be heard in midst of conspired silence, could be seen on freshly painted walls, could be witnessed through new flower pots .The loophole on the campus road was filled up. NAAC gives universities A B or C by seeing all this. But where is the real grade. Why NAAC doesn’t take surprise visit to universities to see how our universities run, how totalitarian they have become in their functioning, how creativity is suppressed in the name course and module. How freedom is curtailed in the name of discipline. How rawness is killed in the name of perfection.

On my way to my college there are big advertisements of one private university located on the periphery of Delhi .Even this university claims to have A grade from NAAC. And everybody knows how that university functions .Recently I came to know that group of students that meet the NAAC team on behalf of universities are given script to speak. May this is what we call in India interrogating the parrots.

NAAC team comes with battalion of cars, their drivers wait for them. Like people in most of the government bodies even these have lost their minds. If NAAC is that strong body why doesn’t it stop the ugly privatization of the education system in the country? They will not do it .They barter grades for perks and privileges. The system is murky. System that governs system is murkier.