Musings of a school looking forward to the NAAC to discuss with

I’m a public faculty in a tier-2 town of northern India. I might relatively no longer disclose my id and keep nameless since I’m going to be visited quickly through a crew of the Nationwide Evaluation and Accreditation Council (NAAC). Established in 1994, the NAAC evaluates and accredits other Upper Training Establishments (HEIs). The self-professed function of NAAC is to “make high quality the defining component of upper schooling in India.” The preparatory paintings for NAAC’s accreditation procedure is undertaken in a straight-jacketed style through maximum HEIs, with every step of the best way being in moderation regarded as and calibrated.

There may be little room for spontaneity or wonder impromptu exams through the Frame. The spirit of creativity and inquiry, which is so essential to the development of schooling, is given brief shrift, and strict adherence to procedures is emphasized.

Additionally Learn: NAAC to show its marking scale for schools: Record

In my case, the discuss with is because of happen in early 2023, and I’m on the centre of tense arrangements as such. I’m being spruced up with new noticeboards, signboards, recent coats of paint, and inexperienced, leafy vegetation. A mine of details about curricular and co-curricular actions carried out during the last 5 years is being unearthed and, from time to time, manufactured. This raking up and, I dare say, making up of the previous report is the most important for my senior control, for if the whole thing is completed correctly, it will neatly translate right into a excessive grade from the NAAC. What tangible advantages this means of grading will ultimately spell for me as an establishment of upper studying or for my scholars is, as but, unclear to me. I’m simplest record out some components of the frantic task underway to organize me for the approaching discuss with. 

Mock drills and trials are being mechanically carried out to organize my scholars and body of workers to stand the NAAC crew. Elaborate databases are being collated. There may be specific emphasis on cataloguing talent enhancement classes, providing probabilities for employment technology. The level to which those classes are in reality advisable for college kids stays a marginal fear, alternatively. 

Detailed lists are being compiled no longer simply of present curriculum and programmes but additionally of to be had knowledge and communications era apparatus. Care is being exercised to remember in their make, style, design, and precise quantity, whilst the true capability of kit and whether or not it may be accessed through scholars and academics on a day by day foundation appear to be problems with little pastime.

Virtual instructing and studying, the organisation of sensible categories, and using on-line sources emerge as catchphrases right here, whilst the issue of restricted web connectivity, that faculties like me typically face stays for essentially the most section unresolved. My case isn’t starkly other from many different HEIs throughout the nation, compelled to serve as and not using a or, at easiest, gravely insufficient web get entry to.

As arrangements for NAAC’s discuss with and accreditation continue apace, I see schemes of scholar mentoring, counselling and reinforce being rapidly framed and completed on paper. In a similar way, the deplorable report of sources and amenities that may permit for or toughen accessibility on campus for folks with quite a lot of forms of disabilities is simplest now gaining consideration.

Pictures of a couple of remoted ramps and elevators throughout the premises are being snapped and picked up in haste to function proof of a concerted institutionalised effort on this course. For the sake of showcasing my educational excellence earlier than NAAC, scholars who’ve handed out from right here during the last decade are being hunted and tracked down. Those that have certified for a national-level exam, were given positioned in a reputed corporate or organisation, and secured high-paying jobs are being cajoled and persuaded to percentage their images, certificate, and different main points.Names and private data of the so-called “scholar achievers” are being bandied about with little fear for protecting their id or privateness. Alumni teams and associations, lengthy defunct, had been delivered to existence. And new ones had been cobbled in combination on the example of the college and control.

Amidst this tense task, I’m wondering to what extent I’m truly undertaking my core function of imparting high quality upper schooling, for which I’m quickly to be examined through the NAAC. Those musings lead me to contemplate different key questions: Can the existing machine of grading and accreditation plug the obtrusive gaps in upper schooling in India, or does the program itself require crucial scrutiny and overhauling?

(The creator is a historian.)