Education has always remained the path to evolution and amelioration of society as a whole. In the contemporary competitive Indian job sector, education is what structures a student’s career colossally. Parents nurture the silent desire to send their progeny to the best institutes, colleges and universities, aspiring to secure their bright future ambitiously. Hence, the reputation of a college, institute or university effectively determines the professional standing, code of conduct, ethics and quality of education, objective and outcome of education, access to cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary internationalization, research oppotunities, employment and career prospects. It is an unuttered act of faith in the education structure and quality. Education, thus, becomes priceless to acquire and attain. Therefore, the need arose to rank and accredit the colleges and universities across various spectrums of Indian higher education based on quality, competency, infrastructure, research, resource utilization, diversity and gender equality.
But what if Rankings & Accreditations can be priced? What should the poor ambitious parent do if the very benchmark and standards that determines the quality and critical competency of an institution/university is flawed and splintered? The recent National Assessment & Accreditation Council (NAAC) bribery and treacherous scandal has emphasized deep gaps and imperfections in an assumed perfect higher education accreditation system. Consequent to a high-level and high-profile inquiry conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India saw multiple arrests of leadership including Vice-Chancellors, Directors and Professors from both the private and public institutes and universities. Charges of graft and bribery were levelled against the Inspection Committee of NAAC to the tune of crores of rupees in exchange of a favourable accreditation rating to a prominent university of India.
This raises several alarms both within and outside the Indian educational diaspora. If rankings & accreditations can be commoditized and bought at will, the entire purpose and governmental enterprise to promote substantial quality stands defeated. Parents, students and all stakeholders will have the right to question the legitimacy of even ace institutions and universities. The buck does not stops here, even the foreign organizations collaborating with Indian universities across multi-disciplinary spheres will be right to doubt the legitimacy of Indian degrees, terminally affecting a students’ career prospects abroad.

As NAAC awaited contemplating reformatory action based on the Radhakrishnan Committee’s report on reforming accreditation, it has found itself shamefully embroiled in a graft racket. The Government of India has to revamp the entire ranking & accreditation process across the higher education, for both the private and public universities. Simply shaking off 800 experts off the panel would not be sufficient to recover a tainted reputation. NAAC’s leadership should be more associated within different age and experience standards, more connected with better regulatory oversight to prevent any bias and conflict of interest. Data verification and validation for any university or institute must be handed out to industry personnel, not external agencies who often have a limited professional and tactical knowledge to make a fair and conceptual assessment. The assessment process must be more transparent and digitalized, objectified to weed out unethical practices and peer visits. NAAC’s inspection and monitoring results are to be critically evaluated by multiple stake-holders. A game changer would be to bring in Artificial Intelligence assisted Analysis Mechanism for ranking & accreditation on various revamped NAAC parameters. Periodic audits and snap inspections are a must to ensure compliance with academic and infrastructural standards.
India’s intellectual and conceptual growth depends on the integrity of her higher education. Financial superiority and interests should not and cannot take any precedence over academic excellence and innovation. The intense competitive rivalry among universities has seen its ramification in duplicitous institutional self-assessment reports and clandestine expert peer review visits. If education becomes another commodity, ranking and accreditation becomes purely transactional.

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Dr Shadab Ahmed is an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon, and has been involved in quality assurance programs of several institutions, including NAAC