Total Pageviews

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

7. Accreditation to ‘discreditation’ : Campus Musings


 The other day, I had been to a reputed Government College in the city accredited with ‘A’Grade. As I had arrived in the college  quite early for an academic work, I had time to interact with  the faculty. My curiosity in finding out those aspects that led the college to acquire an ‘A’ Grade made me inquire about the academic programmes in the college. I was told that  over the years, things have completely changed in this once reputed college.  Though the  NAAC Peer Team had accredited the college with an ‘A’ Grade,  the public have their own accreditation! So only the ‘third’ or ‘fourth best’ of the students who join the Arts and Science stream, come to this college!

A more startling revelation came from a faculty closely associated with the accreditation process. From his experience he has found that, once a teacher registers for research, he/she  willingly divorces himself/ herself from any serious preparation for teaching students. Such teachers, never ever take the extra pain to raise the competence of students! And what follows after the securing of a PhD is assiduous preparation for  attending seminars, presenting papers and publishing of  articles to meet UGC guidelines!

As I waited to fulfil the purpose of my visit, came shouts of slogans, of a particular student’s union, against the  Principal and teachers of the college,  for banning a Film Festival for which they had already sold the tickets! Soon the striking students were seen  driving out of class rooms those keen on academics with occasional threats! I later realized that  this was a tactful move to make it convenient for the students to  attend the Film Festival.  While all this was happening, the teachers of the college  promptly entered abandoned class rooms  as per the bell and returned to their Staff Room with the tell tale message on their faces…  Phew...another day of rest!

A faculty of the college, affirmed that  the present  power struggle between the Students Union and the College  Teachers  is  likely to continue for a few days. This is because the struggle is of ominous importance and that it is  the winner of this struggle  who will ultimately  be having an upper hand in the conduct of  academic programmes of the college for  the current  academic year!

With concern, I inquired whether this will affect their college accreditation. To this, my friend  with insouciance assured me that during re-accreditation, it will  be a  still better grade .. simply because such   insalubrious  facts are  always  discretely  suppressed !

For more articles by the author, please view:



No comments:

Post a Comment

23.Unlocking the incredible benefits of Meditation

  “Are we teaching our brilliant young minds how to cope with extreme stress? It’s no wonder that suicides are becoming common among them.” ...