Born on June 16, 1948, Hassan Annegowda Ranganath earned his BSc and MSc degrees from University of Mysore, after which he worked there as UGC Junior Research Fellow from 1971 to 1973 and CSIR Senior Research Fellow from 1973 to 1975 in the Postgraduate Department of Zoology. He obtained his PhD in 1975. He has worked in the area of genetics of speciation and evolution. One of his noted works is on the evolutionary cytogenetics of the Nasuta sub-group of Drosophila. In March 2006, he was appointed as vice-chancellor of Bangalore University. In August 2008, Prof Ranganath assumed charge as National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) director and retired on June 14. He talks shop on NAAC and its relevance.
Clearing the air
The success of NAAC is often measured by the number of higher education institutions it has accredited. Prof HA Ranganath feels this is not to measure NAAC’s performance. “Assessment and accreditation has been made mandatory not because NAAC has failed; it is because response from higher education institutions was poor. So far, whoever has volunteered, we have assessed them,” Prof Ranganath says.
Established in 1994 as an autonomous body by University Grants Commission, NAAC did not carry out any assessment and accreditation work for the first four years. “This was a challenging period for NAAC as its genesis introduced the concept of external quality assurance. We had to convince stakeholders, students and academics in universities of the importance of quality assurance in higher education,” he says.
Shift in focus
Based on NAAC’s recommendation, 28 states have state-level quality assurance cells (SQACs) and several institutions have internal quality assurance cells (IQACs). “With robust growth and expansion of higher education, NAAC cannot be expected to do everything. From external quality assurance, the emphasis has shifted to internal quality assurance. It has to be institutionalised,” feels Prof Ranganath.
NAAC’s relevance
On the relevance of NAAC’s assessment in today’s higher education scenario, Prof Ranganath opines that quality assurance mechanism in the country should become stringent. “The role of NAAC has always been to provide appropriate information to stakeholders on whether minimum standards are available in an institution to deliver education. We need a highly robust, objective assessment mechanism in place as higher education is growing quickly,” he says.
There are 620 universities and more than 35,000 colleges in the country. Recent statistics show that NAAC has accredited 172 universities and 4,857 colleges. Of these, only 35 per cent of universities and 10 per cent of colleges are graded ‘A’. “We must understand that we have an average time of three-nine months to accredit institutions,” he says. “Some say it takes up to two years. The dynamics of assessment is such that it can be done only when the institution is functional. Most institutions are functional only for eight months in a year, including admission and examination time when they ask us not to come,” he explains.
Global rankings
Many NAAC-graded institutions do not figure in global higher education institutional rankings, which reflects poorly on NAAC. Prof Ranganath begs to differ. “Assessment and rankings are distinctly different from each other,” he says. “The intention of NAAC is to ensure the institution has minimum requirements to deliver quality education. We don’t measure excellence. On the other hand, rankings are not bothered about this. They look at an international mix of faculty and students, research publications, grants generated from research among other criteria. They also look at UG teaching, where some of our universities could score well, but we lose on the international mix.”
On its part, NAAC is taking steps to constantly empower higher education institutions. For instance, he says, NAAC provides grants of Rs 75,000 for each IQAC to conduct seminars and workshops. “There is some NAAC-related activity happening at least 200 days a year.”
International agencies
Prof Ranganath, a biologist by training, does not feel threatened by the rise of international accreditation agencies. “Let me tell you, there aren’t many international agencies. But as a biologist, I’d say let there be competition. More the competition, the better my performance gets. Compared to others, I can say we are a much better organisation. In fact, the Asia Pacific Quality Network sends its people here for training.”
Regional offices
NAAC has written to UGC to strengthen its headquarters in Bangalore and support NAAC by setting up regional offices. “We are working on a detailed project report for these offices and the UGC is encouraging us. We are glad that the UGC believes in this organisation, which has a bright future and needs to be protected.”
— bharath@newindianexpress.com