The Deception of Ranking in Higher Education - NIRF 2024

The Deception of the Higher Education Ranking System

I was glad to find 3 of the Kerala universities - viz., CUSAT (Technology), Kerala University and MG University (the university under which I worked for 24 years, and from where I also obtained my 'hard earned' Ph. D - but of no significant value as far as method or addition to knowledge are concerned) were ranked in the National Ranking of HEIs respectively 9, 10 and 11. Glad for that position of our otherwise neglected universities of an otherwise neglected state in the top rank.  However, equally surprised - if these were the top-ranked universities, then I don't have much to imagine what would be the status of our universities in general. 

Based on my experience with the university system for 24 years, I had observed two things about the functioning of the university - 1) it was more of a clerical-dom than an academic centre, with clerks (some of them educationally well qualified, and apparently, disaffected) ruling the roost.  They dictated terms based on the rules laid down - almost measuring the various aspects of the university and affiliated colleges (admission, attendance, new programmes, infrastructure, evaluation etc.) as if they used a foot rule to measure them.  Most of them having been well qualified with higher degrees that would have made them eligible for faculty positions, had to end up as administrative staff - I am not sure why their general antipathy towards the academic staff, and assume it is either that of being sticklers to the rules, or that of letting their frustration out by frustrating those in academics.  They seemed to expect and relish that academics and academic administrators of the affiliated colleges stood in awe and deference of them, and addressed them 'sir', though they would not really insist thus.  And being generally under strong unions (especially the majority coming under the belligerent leftist union) they wield organisational power and political protection,which make them almost unchallenged. 

2) it was more of a political arena and less of an academic one - not implying that academics can be devoid of politics.  But in this case, it was merely a power politics based on political party affiliations - and the most powerful offices and bodies of the university were attained on the basis of such political affiliations or blessings, while academic and service merits were also taken into account. Hence, the decisions the university takes would depend less on academic advancement, and more on ruling party's political agenda. 

3) In addition, something common about the public sphere of Keralam would be that of a pharisaic socialism - that is socialism for all, except for the individual self and family.  In this matter, the difference between the two major political fronts and all other affiliated units under them was only in degrees and not in the thrust as such.  

The universities will not promote any new programmes or batches in the aided scheme - making the academic environment stunted. If anything is started in a self-financing scheme, it is capitalism.  The university, the state and the unions take double standards towards the self-financing stream - they permit such programmes, without any prick of conscience get per-head fees, and treat the colleges, staff and students of this stream as second-class citizens. Fortunately, for now, the students have access to be on the student bodies, and now in many colleges, they have come lead those bodies as well. 

I would like to recall some aspects of my experience with two universities having top ranks - MG University (11), Lucknow University (97)

Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam 

(i) The former till 2 years ago, invariably had the students suffering and exploited by the system, whereby the first semester results appeared almost at the end of the fifth semester or sometimes in the sixth forcing the students hopeful of higher grades to improve their scores by reappearing again, paying fees again. 

(ii) The semester system introduced almost thoughtlessly and aping some Western/American model, where it might be functioning well, is the bane in the learning-teaching process. There used to be, in those days, hardly anyone in the university administrative circles who had a grasp of what the credits meant, and why the semester system was being adopted. (Perhaps, it is different now!).  It is more exam-oriented than ever before, with test after test in an otherwise crowded semester scheme. In Kerala universities like MG, a semester holds 3 tests - 2 as continuous assessments (but, compulsorily in the form of test papers with specific percentages assigned - as a check on potential manipulation or intimidation by the teachers; besides assignments). There is very little trust in the teachers - an Indian phenomenon with the educational ecosystem reinforcing the same. Consequently, there is very little space for innovation in assessment, or autonomy in exercising creative ways of assessing continuously. 

(iii) The MG University VC Dr. Babu Sebastian deemed continuous/formative assessment (internal assessment) precisely as a way in which the affiliated colleges (or the university departments - perhaps, he conveniently forgets that the university faculty members are also Malayalee Indian human beings, and liable to corrupt behaviour attributed to the entire set of Indian educators) tried to promote their students by providing the entire allocated grades (scores).  At least that was his assumption and understanding based on which he accused Sacred Heart College which as an autonomous college decided to increase the weighttage of continuous assessment from 20% to 25% and for which he and his crony puppets of the left-union-led syndicate made a farce of allegation against the college for having violated the university norms, and withheld the degrees of the students, thus instigating the easily politically manipulable and manipulative Kerala students.  In the presence of his syndicate members, he asked me: Why did you increase that 5% in order to give added advantage to your students? It revealed his understanding of the provision, as a manipulative tool to give greater scores to one's students, rather than a provision for assessing multi-dimensional learning.  I can't say for sure that a few teachers at SH also would have made it a provision for a liberal score for their students, but they were exceptions - the faculty members, on the whole, made the assessment rather rigorous. 

(iv) Any creative initiative by a college is stalled by the university, by its draconian bureaucracy and reference to the letter of the university statutes.

(v) Vitriolic student politics is deliberately promoted by the university, which is more than often a puppet in the hands of the ruling party.  And they try to justify the political party-based student politics in the name of political education, and those who oppose this mode of political education as 'apolitical' (arashatreeyavadam) by regular attack on them for their shallowness of understanding and stand.  In the incident cited above, with university withholding the result of the first autonomous batch, the students got panicked, and the natural next step is to agitate and protest in a violent fashion. Though the college was making all out effort to help the students to get their certificates by the university, and issuing its own course completion certificate which was accepted by many universities for admission, the student leaders confided in me that the university power centres wanted them to do a strike (boycott of classes) and in a day the matter would be solved. I challenged them, and permitted them to go ahead.  Nothing resulted, except that power lobbies aligned to left union of the university felt glad that their unit at SH had successfully created ruckus on the campus, yielding no result. We were literally made to cow-tow before the university, and pay an unjust penalty of Rs 10 lakhs, (which was later squashed by the High Court), before the students could get their certificates.

(vi) There is hardly any quality control in the field of undergraduate or graduate level research, merely treating the same as a requirement, unless a particular teacher or a department of a college is determined to make it adhere to some standards of research. But as such, the university does not spell out any research-linked outcomes at the UG or PG level, at least till the implementation of the 4 year UG programme under NEP in 2023.

(vii) Eleven years of having led a senior and rather well-established college in the university, I have not found even a single academic year opening on a pre-planned schedule, having a pre-announced calendar indicating exam schedule, and a date for the results and other important academic and co-curricular activities of the university.  With the introduction of autonomous status to colleges, in spite of all the apathy, antagonism, virtual opposition on all fronts, and an all-out effort to torpedo the scheme, many of the autonomous colleges were able to demonstrate that this quality dimension of a planned implementation of academic and co-curricular activities within a year was possible, and can be scaled up. 

(viii) The university leadership had been consistent with their policies to defeat autonomy and not to let the autonomous college grow and bloom, by innovation, creativity and diversification.  Never having let the autonomy function beyond the design of curriculum (which would brook no deviation from the university norms even  ad experimentum), their notorious representative like the minister for H.E. Mr K.A. Jaleel, in spite of his having been an educator in that band, had the idiotic temerity to demand improvement on the research front, after one year of completion of the autonomous status (conveniently forgetting the research standards of the universities having full autonomy in all aspects).

(ix) In movies, we come across 'gunda raj' often - they tax the local people 'hafta' or 'protection money' for letting them earn their living without interference, basically from their gang; perhaps also from others. In M.G. university, with self-financing colleges it is kind of extortion money - 'capitation' fee by way of per-capita annual fee for every student admitted, and for every programme approved -  amount ranging from Rs. 2000 to 20000 per annum.  University could be justified to a certain extent as it has invested in designing the programmes, holding exams and bringing out the results (though there is a separate fee for the latter two, and it is also to be noted that the publicly funded university is sharing what they have developed for the government-financed colleges).  In effect, they discriminate between the students who are otherwise privileged to get into the government-secured stream, while the students who are to pay for their tuitions even otherwise are now exploited by this extortion system. 

When it comes to autonomous colleges also the norm is repeated, where the university does no other work than granting them degrees for which additional fees besides affiliation fees are extorted. This is in violation of the autonomy norms, but structured and transparent, though it is extortion all the same. 

(x) However, there was one thing sound about MG University, there was hardly ever any insinuation indicating the need to bribe anyone for any support - whether it was for approval of teacher posts, sanctioning of new programmes or enhancing of in-take capacity - things happened in the system, usually taking undue time - and a little faster, with a push from political higher-ups, or the unions (generally, the leftist union). A vacant faculty position usually takes a minimum of 2 years for the initial appointment, and another 2 years for the approval leading to the drawing of the first salary!! 

(xi) The politically leaning university bureaucracy - both academic and administrative - always favoured a violent political culture to colonise the higher education system, which was found to be invariably anti-establishment, generally having a stance that any private management is sinful, destructive (with main activity centred around protest strikes on any  and every issue around, accompanied by boycott of classes and elections to the students' union council) and divisive. The only consolation, could be that of not letting the parties typically stamped as fundamentalist not gaining much foothold (a common feature of Kerala higher education landscape). 

(xii) The university apparently tried to push the NSS forum in an aggressive and demanding manner in the past few years, with great thrust on the green agenda, and having transformed the university campus into a bio-diverse and richly green campus!

These are some of the shades of the quality experiences of a top-ranked university of South India. MG university is not even 50 years old. 

Lucknow University: Coming to Lucknow university with a fabulous campus with antique buildings in the heart of the ancient Lucknow city, and having a history of over a century, the university is graded by NAAC at A++. 

(i) 2 years of experience with it, with almost the odd semester getting over as I note this, an academic calendar is not available. Just before major festivals like Dusserrah or Diwali, or just around Christmas time (winter), holidays are announced, making it difficult for an institution to plan its activities and curriculum, if at all one has such planned activities. Exam days are hardly ever known beforehand - it is assumed it may take place sometime in December or January, and then the even semester would start somewhere around mid-January and end by mid-May, possibly having some summer holidays from mid-May to end-June; only to have the odd semester declared open early July. That would imply that even-semester is invariably shorter. 

(ii) The university gains high grounds with the partisan NAAC assessors - generally found to have a staunch Hindutwa slant by parroting the NEP slogans (from my own experience as an assessor - though not always - and our bitter experience with the assessment at Sacred Heart College, Kochi) and the newly discovered and imposed Bharateeyam agenda - by introducing courses in various Hindu traditions, promoting Hindu festivals to be celebrated on the campuses, even sending circulars to do the honours on the occasions like the inauguration of Ram Temple. 

(iii) The credit and semester system, grading system, four-year UG programme, skill development thrust etc. have been imposed taking credit for the first implementation of the government agenda, but with hardly any orientation or support for the HoIs, the faculty or the staff.  The University has made efforts to articulate, albeit clumsily, outcomes for each of the courses - again, with hardly any involvement of or introduction to the faculty members. 

(iv) When as a general trend, the classes themselves are not held, what to speak of faculty orientation or the outcomes.  Skill-based courses are listed, with hardly any directive or training as to how to implement them. Even with all good intentions and efforts, I find our campus not doing any justice to such claims - still exams come, students appear, and most of them clear the papers. On paper, they look good - with four such courses integrated into the curriculum in the first two years of UG studies.  We try to make amends, we plan ahead, we try to give inputs to the students, and then a month ahead of the exams, a new list is released, in which some of the courses chosen or introduced are not there, but something else is there. 

French is introduced as a compulsory skill add-on for the BBA programme, and the announcement comes almost two months after the admissions get over, and just before the exams are announced. Now the colleges have to go hunting for a French teacher. And French teachers are not all that easily available.  However, even without French teachers the students pass. They don't have to undergo any test. Some assignments have to be submitted and stored. (Then the exams get over, the results are announced. There is no exam for French. All students pass. However, by the end of II semester, it is revealed that some form had to be submitted by the college, and lacking this, all students of BBA have failed.)

(v) One quality indicator of Lucknow University is money - with money being spent, any quality can be bought. 

New courses - above and beyond fees, the movement of the papers at each stage is made easier and less time-consuming by pandering to the support staff, the clerk, the academic heads, and the academic experts who come for the farce of inspection - with the sole concern being whether they are being paid adequately - an approval visit for a new course would entail that each of the 3 experts is paid Rs. 50000.00 in cash (with no documentation - you ask for a voucher, you are doomed), besides their taxi fare (even when they might have come by a shared private car or bus) and sumptuous food.  These deities literally have to be appeased! One of them confides that a cut from the unaccounted fees, goes to the VC, who chooses his cronies from the university or from other universities with such tacit understanding (no proof, just an allegation)!  Finally, the course gets approved by end-July when, the admissions are almost over, and there is very little likelihood of getting students. 

(vi) Approval of the faculty is also an apparently good system on paper, however happens to be bordering around the farce of a few favoured seniors getting some 'family benefit scheme' by way of some unaccountable money every year for having a good time with their family in some attractive spot in India or even abroad.  Some critical or nastily intimidating questions are asked, but finally, everyone presented is approved provided the pro rata appeasement money (something like ransom money) is given to all concerned.  We had an expert from Varanasi - an associate or a full professor (Dr. Aman Gupta), after all arrangements for the farce of an interview were made - booking facility at the university guest house, refreshments, panel of experts, the candidates etc., he calls up and says the date he had agreed upon was not convenient to him, and alter the same. He is designated the chairman. Our manager responds by saying it will be very difficult to postpone now with candidates even appearing from other states, having booked their ticket etc. (which was only partly true). Finally, he agrees to be there online, as there was a provision for that.  Now after the interview was completed and all decisions made, he indicated that he would come to Lucknow on a particular day, and we could get the papers signed by him.  The administrator tried to get the papers signed, but he wouldn't, unless he knew what was being given to him as a fee. Now, a literal streetside haggling takes place - with the administrator starting the bid at Rs. 15000, and the expert not budging from his position of getting Rs. 25000.00. Having no other go, the administrator yields! The papers are signed. 

Comparison Corruption (read, Extortion) The way in which MG University and Lucknow University differ is the way in which they extort money, making use of the power the university exercises over the hapless institutions and their students - in Keralam, extortion is legalised and the benefits become a source of income for the university; in UP, the corruption is systemic but individualised, and organised systematically and subtly though illegally, caters to individuals' (all along the hierarchy?) benefit.  It is alleged that the corruption reaches up to the ruling party by way of cuts from the amount received by the individuals. 

Case Studies in Graft Assuming we had the right to take 10% additional seats (as was the case in the previous year), we admitted the maximum number of students to a particular programme.  The portal accepted their enrolment, however, the manual scrutiny led to the rejection of admission for the last 6, and by then, it was exam time. It would be a tough task to convince the students and their parents to withdraw admission.  We venture to the university.  We meet with the venerable dean of admissions, a senior professor (Prof. Anitya Gaurav). He comes after our prolonged wait in a very imposing manner, and giving an air as if mortal beings like us had no existence.  We were later ushered in, after the mobile phones being taken away from us at the door - for security reasons (a standard practice in all higher offices of the university), as they know that the public both their products and victims, can be as manipulative as they are. He makes some statements as if we had done some crime amounting to subversion. Finally, he says, I can do nothing - but I will help you. Abhi yah kaam tedhi ungli se lena padega... He appears to be making some consultation, and gives us an envelope and asks us to pay Rs 25000.00 for the six seats to be made legal - how this magic would happen in the e-governed system, shows the skill acquisition at the senior faculty/administration level, truly adhering to the national agenda and National Skill Quality Framework😀!

(vi) In this region and this A++ university, the generally accepted norm for HE is that the student has to register, pay the fees and appear for the final examination. All the rest would depend on the students' goodwill!  So if a college insists on regular classes and activities, the typical response is: Arre, we have to pay money, and then come for the classes too! 

(vii) Comparison of University Environment: A blessing in comparison with the aggressively politically (il)literate and explosive (not merely active) Keralam is that for a typical college, there is hardly any political activity - but our professorial political pundits of Keralam, would correct the politically illiterate like us saying, 'but that is their politics'!  Even if you would just brush aside the provisions of student participation there would not be much concern among the students.  Typical party activities are hardly ever there, except perhaps in very established grant-in-aid colleges or on the university campus. Even there, it is hardly anything when compared to the virulent Kerala scenario.  However, with a minimal amount of promptings, the students are found to get awakened to the politics within them and can be educated to be politically alert and critical, with or without party affiliations.

The Rank Illusion - I have narrated the experience as an insider in Higher Education in two top-ranking and well-rated universities, ranked and rated high. If this is the status of top-ranking universities, it is only left to the imagination as to the plight of higher education in those one thousand-odd universities, generally not ranked or ranked lower! In spite of all the glorious Indianisation of the Americanised NEP, this is the hard reality today - to be on the optimistic side, I hope with 2030 or 2035 NEP dreams may turn into reality. 

Some simple steps to ensure minimum quality in H.E. in India

1. Ensure POs - PSOs - COs are articulated, and the teaching community is familiar with the framework and the outcomes, and the basic methods or steps to attain them. 

2. Ensure that there is a pre-announced schedule for an academic year (start, exams, holidays, sports & cultural activities, if any, and the end - semester wise), and it is adhered to. (When this is absent, permit the affiliated colleges to set their calendar except for the common semester exams and carry on with their programmes in a planned fashion).

3. Ensuring that the entire process of awarding courses is an online process, accessible in the public domain, and experts are given prescribed fees which are accounted for.  A panel is provided from which the individual institution is free to choose the experts and pay the prescribed fees. 

4. Every aspect of the academic progress of the student is entered and available online, including the aspects of overall development. 

5. Guidance and support provisions at the university level to all applicants (and their parents, where warranted) regarding the choices of major, other courses etc. offered, within 24 hours of the online request. 

6. Making provisions for credit transfers easy with pre-announced fee and requirements and maximum duration by which  an online application is processed, and if rejected, reasons provided for the same. 

7. Adequate stress on co-curricular aspects for well-rounded development, with the university providing the personnel support for the same - NSS, NCC, Talent clubs etc. 

8. Adequate autonomy in managing the courses and the formative assessment, at least up to 40% within the given schedule ensuring that the minimum stipulated working days are ensured. Quality assurance through study feedback and monitoring mechanisms. 

9. Provisions for experiential and field-based learning for overall and professional development with mandatory or additional credits, based on verifiable evidence. 

10. A timely merit-cum-need based scholarship scheme - with the entry level score/CUET score being reckoned for the first year, and the annual average performance for the subsequent years. 

11. An academic culture not led by partisan politics while ensuring a critical political education as the citizens of a nation and members of the global family.

12. Flexibility to complete the chosen courses through varied options ensuring the stipulated outcomes, with the course teacher having the key role in ensuring them. 

13. Mandatory teacher orientation at the university level for all freshly inducted teachers before they start engaging sessions; and mandatory orientation to all the teachers before new schemes are introduced. 

14. Mandatory outreach programmes at the university/college level with minimum annual contribution to be made by both the students and the teachers.