NAAC accreditation should encourage integrity in research, regardless of funding – Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe

With the recently released binary accreditation and maturity level accreditation system coming up for implementation soon, Prof. Anil D Sahasrabudhe – chairman of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) and the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) – talks to Tanay Kumar about some major changes that the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) is about in incorporate.

Q. Being a top ranker throughout your academic life, your parents must have played a major role in educational journey. Please tell us about them.

I grew up in a lower-class Indian family. My father, Dattatreya Sahsrabuddhe, worked in the Indian Railways and my mother, Sushila, was a homemaker. Although my mother was brilliant in studies, she couldn’t take her academic dreams too far and was forced to drop out of school after the 7th standard. That’s how things were 50-60 years ago. So, she always wanted her children to complete their education. My mother has played a very strong role in my educational journey.

Due to a death in my father’s family, my father’s financial situation was not great, to say the least. And since I was the oldest among all the siblings, I had to leave school after my 10th standard to help my father support the family. I applied for a job at a company which was working with the Indian Railways, and the supervising manager, who was interviewing me, saw my 10th marksheet and was shocked that I was quitting school.

I think he must have spoken about this with someone from my family and two distant relatives came forward to help me further my education. So, I continued studying, which resulted in the National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) scholarship. That helped me greatly – it covered all my fees and also gave me some extra pocket money.

Q. You have done your PhD in mechanical engineering. Please tell us about your research.

I completed my postgraduation and PhD from the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. My research project was related to noise reduction in the silencers of the automobiles we drive. The technical name of the automobile silencer is ‘muffler.’

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It is well known that the silencers in automobiles are anything but that, at least back in the day. They were loud, and noise begets psychosomatic disorders in our brain. So, it had a finite element method which is a part of structural engineering that belong to the infrastructure stream. I was working on the acoustic elements of the muffler and how we can leverage that technology.

Q. What is your opinion of the research field in India? What are researchers doing right and wrong?

Research must be in one’s thought process and approach in general, regardless of the subject of study. Inspiration to do research must be inculcated in the minds of children right from their elementary classes, as it motivates one to think critically and analytically. We can get unconventional and effective ways of teaching and learning only from research. Teachers must encourage children to ask questions because it also enriches their knowledge, as they have to look and find the answers.

Professors must not plagiarize researches from other sources. It is unfortunate that Indian professors are caught passing off other people’s work as their own. Plagiarism isn’t different from theft.

Last, but not the least, students must be encouraged to be good observers as observation is vital for figment and to look something new in the available resources.

Q. In one of your interviews, you spoke about the great observation power of students living in the hinterlands and rural areas of India. Please elaborate.

The new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has totally taken this necessity into consideration as now, we are working for an absolute inclusive and multidisciplinary education. Students from rural areas surely have better observation power than many who are living in in cities, as rural students have witnessed more natural occurring with their own eyes. Yes, we are struggling with lacuna and shortages in our system. Many teachers haven’t received their appointment letters. And, we are trying to strengthen the primary and school education with the available teachers as that’s also important.

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The Ministry of Education is continuously reminding all authorities and institutions across the country to fill vacant positions of teachers and professors. Further, state universities must fill their vacancies as they are under the jurisdiction of the respective state governments. Also, when it comes to central universities, authorities are trying to ensure good quality teachers, as their academic and teaching qualities must not be compromised.

Q. How do NAAC and NBA encourage technical research for private institutions?

There are instances when some researches need high-end and better technological equipment, but it is not always the same scenario. There are research areas where the required fund is lower or nominal. Research should be practiced with full integrity even when all that’s needed is a computer and some software.

I see some probable solutions to it. Even private colleges can get endowments and grants from government departments when they apply with their innovative and solution-driven projects. Further, private institutions must keep a percentage, for example 10% or 20%, of their budget solely dedicated to research and necessary equipment.

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Another way of getting some capital for private colleges can be funds from corporate social responsibilities (CSR) and industries. Private colleges must come up to solve problems of small and medium enterprises which can further bring funds and resources to the private college. And, due to this association, our students would also get more acquainted with the industry sector, which will further encourage them to get more students for our industry-academia bridging purpose.

On that note, I want to stress that teachers and professors must visit the industries that are available in their districts. Collaboration of teachers with the nearby industries will also help them to get aware of industries’ problems. Further, alumni network can play a pivotal role in this case. Alumni working in different parts of the industries may bring funds from their employer organizations or industries for the research projects in their alma mater. And, in order to do so, colleges must keep engaging with their alumni.

Q. Various small colleges and institutions have raised concerns about the evaluation fee for NAAC accreditation, which stands at around Rs. 5 lakh. What does the council has to say on this issue?

NAAC is an autonomous non-profit organization so there is no possibility of making any profit. And this fee is not rigid, it varies depending on the size of the institution, faculty strength, number of academic programs, students’ strengths and many more factors.

The evaluation fee is lower for small institutions with lesser academic programs. The big campuses are required to submit fees in proportion to all factors I just mentioned as executives from NAAC have to go through the whole institution and all programs.

Q. Lots of Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) from tier-2 and tier-3 cities lack exposure and other resources compared to the colleges in tier-1 and metro cities and that’s why sometimes they secure a lower NIRF ranking. Does the NIRF have any rationalization for these factors, as all Indian students can’t study only in tier-1 or metro cities?

We are going to change the NIRF ranking system. There are different types of universities and institutions in our country. There are fully autonomous universities, so they will have different parameters in the ranking system. Many colleges are affiliated by those autonomous universities and naturally they have lesser controls in their hands when it comes to examinations and syllabus as they have to follow that university.

Therefore, parameters will be a different for different intuitions. We will do the segregation for colleges and institutions, for tier 1, 2 and 3 cities and towns as well. In the new ranking system, the parameters for big universities will be different. It is surely good when big HEIs do well, but in the new ranking system, good colleges in small towns and villages will also rise as the ranking system will be different for them.

When I was the AICTE chairperson, we said that until all engineering students don’t do internships, their employability and necessary skills will not be enhanced.

As you see in the medical stream, a student has to do a year’s practice when their fourth year completes. It is called as housemanship at some hospitals that run their institutes as well. A student is trained within the premises of the hospital after learning all the theories of human anatomy and medical science.

But, it wasn’t the scenario for the engineering students as a majority of them were only books without any hands-on practice of those technical theories. College in the big cities have a default advantage of resources and so their students as well. To facilitate engineering colleges from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, we introduced the internship portal on AICTE’s website.

Today, over 75,000 industries have been associated with AICTE’s internship portal and many students are getting benefitted.

So, considering all these limitations for the colleges that are in small cities, we are going to segregate ranking as well.

Q. In a press release issued in January this year, NAAC announced Binary Accreditation, that the institution will either be accredited or not accredited. Why did the council think of this new system?

The NEP 2020 has already mentioned the reforms in the accreditation system. The Education Ministry formed the Radhakrishnan Committee to observe the entire accreditation system holistically. The committee proposed a transition from the current eight-point grading system to a binary accreditation system, which says that the institution will be termed as either accredited or non-accredited.

Every institution wants to be in the top grades, but fewer adopt the path of fair ones and go by the guidelines. Earlier, many institutions were adapting unfair methods to gain the grades in the previous system. Other HEIs complained of unfair practices, media houses also reported them. So, the new binary system is here to solve all those problems.

Now, there cannot be a possibility of any unfair practice if all the institutions are either accredited or unaccredited.

Q. So, wouldn’t this process take years to be popular among students? How would you ascertain that students get to know of it within a year?

We received inputs from across the country that students and their guardians chose a particular college or university on the basis of their grading, but they were disappointed with the facilities, laboratories and infrastructure turned out to be of lower quality.

So, the new binary accreditation will surely fix that problem. Students and parents should also check the NIRF’s website to see whether a particular college is in the top 100, or in between 150 to 200 or it has received any other rank. Grading alone shouldn’t be the parameter to judge a particular college.

Around 70% of the colleges in India are still unaccredited. It simply means that the current strength of students, which is over 2 crore, have only 30% accredited institutes to choose from. So, this binary system would encourage the rest of the 70% to apply for accreditation.

It will take some years, around four to six, to get all institutions in India accredited because they will go through inspection each time they apply. Every time they will receive inputs and feedbacks about their problems and faults, they will have to work on them. So, with the help of this binary system, we will be able to get all the colleges accredited and we will have the minimum quality benchmark.

Also, there will be additional Maturity-Based Graded Accreditation, from Level 1 to Level 5, along with binary accreditation. Each level will be representing the level of quality and excellence in higher education, Level 5 being the highest. And, an institution cannot apply for accreditation until it acquires Level 1 maturity, which is the lowest.

So, the parents will be able to know about the college by the Maturity Level and NIRF ranking. Further, social media plays a very critical role nowadays. Students and other people keep giving their feedbacks about colleges, which further enables parents and students to know about a particular college. If our parents and students see all this carefully, then they will get a fair impression of a college automatically.

Q. On that point, isn’t it possible that colleges order their students to give false ratings to other institutions?

Definitely not because we take feedbacks from other stakeholders as well. Further, we will be leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to detect these malpractices. We will leverage this technology to detect whether the college has exaggerated its rating over the web or it is for real.

Q. The NEP categorically stresses on multidisciplinary education. How is the NAAC incorporating this?

We are working on the parameters to incorporate multidisciplinary education. Along with it, there are other necessary factors as well that we are working on. Further, every college cannot facilitate multidisciplinary education as there are some colleges only for arts education, some only for commerce, some are only for science. An arts stream college cannot be expected to provide multidisciplinary education.

But we will give marks to those institutions that provide multidisciplinary education to their students. For example, an arts college would have streams like sociology, economics, psychology etc. But if an arts college provides facility to its students to learn computer programing or any other science course by either in-housing separate faculties or MOOC platforms, we will give them credit for these efforts in APAAR ID and bank of credits.

Similarly, sustainability is a very crucial factor as every one of us is talking about it. We will also give scores to those institutions that are adapting sustainability practices like energy saving, waste management, recycling, cleanliness, plantation etc. depending upon their location as colleges in cities have limited spaces.

Students carry these sustainability practices even after their academic life, whether it is their workplace or even life in general. We have to encourage colleges to not help a student get a degree, but also help making the student a holistic person.

Q. Will NAAC and NBA introduce a parameter of sustainability in the NIRF ranking?

Yes, we have been working on it and all the other details regarding this parameter would be released next year. In fact, by next year, we are going to introduce Sustainability Ranking for all colleges and institution as which one is adapting more provisions of sustainability parameters.

Q. Recently, the International Labor Organization released its ‘India Employment Report 2024: Youth employment, education and skills.’ Along with the unemployment rate of 83%, the report showed that youth percentage with graduation and formal training was at 28% (those of age between 15 to 29) in 2005, but it came down to 14% in 2022. It further laments over the crisis of sluggish formal training among technical graduates. Being the chairperson of the NETF and the former AICTE chairperson, how do you see this crisis?

This is not only true for India; every country is discussing this issue of employability of the graduates. It has two elements: one is absolutely real, which is about curriculum and academic not being applicable to the real world problems; unless we connect them with the real issues and make them understand. The AICTE internship portal is one of those steps in this regard. Another step we took to build the National Education Alliance for Technology (NEAT) for skill-based education and its testing during the study.

We will evaluate students each year as it is worthless to say that a student doesn’t have any skill after four years of education. So, with the help of constant evaluation, by the time a student completes graduation, they would have acquired all the necessary real-life skills. Many times, we’ve seen industries say that a particular student is good in the subject knowledge, can write the paper, but she or he disappoints in interpersonal and professional communication, which clearly means that the student wasn’t exposed to different people and business dignitaries.

The industries are also responsible for this plight. The AICTE internship portal has registered around 75000 companies, but the small and medium industries, and start-ups are in lakhs, which are enough to train the current strength of the Indian students.

Q. So, shouldn’t there be any law for it?

See, sometimes, introducing some laws brings negative results. So, we will do it on motivation and competition basis. Industries should also take this responsibility as they keep complaining about student’s employability. Then, why don’t they come forward to help students for internship during their coursework and select the best among them?

Further, there is one cautionary point in the placement process. Students are placed by colleges’ Placement Cell. If a college has 400 students, then in two days of the placement, companies interview all of them. It raises a question about how much time was given to one student during the entire selection process? While, if industries had taken 10 students out of those 400, they would have assessed those 10 on different parameters. This would have saved their time, even during the placement as well.

Q. Then, what’s averting the industries to do this?

Some companies and enterprises are doing it and they do take fresh graduates only through internships. Some of them are not ready to visit the college campus during the placements as they want to assess the students within their own environment. Currently, it is not happening with every industry, but a trend has started which needs to be scaled up.

Further, today, jobs in big companies are lesser in comparison to the number of graduates in India. What’s happening at Kota is an example of it. Every year, IITs have around 15000 seats, while more than 3 lakh students study in Kota which simply means that even if those students are given the best quality education, only 15000 could be admitted into IITs. What about rest of them? They must be good in some other domains.

That’s why we want to create an ecosystem for start-ups. Students must be encouraged to begin their own start-up.

Another case occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The computer science stream witnessed massive recruitment due to lockdown, as most of the activities were happening online. It created an atmosphere that only computer science branch has great potential to get employed and youth started opting only for computer and IT branches.

Now, it may happen that after some years, we will be facing a huge gap of workforce in the civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical and other non-IT engineering branches. So, each institute must focus on infusing the entrepreneur-ability along with the employability. If we have start-ups in streams like, food processing, utensils and culinary making and other unconventional streams, we can capture the world market. It will take time.

Colleges must focus on the issue of sustainability as well. Before this century, there used to be two to three ponds in each village and many of them have gone dry today. That’s the reason we will introduce the parameter of sustainability in the NIRF ranking.

Q. Education in the liberal arts and social science is equally crucial for us and the NAAC’s portal on Accredited Programs has not listed any course in arts and social science. Why so?

See, most of our universities specialize in arts and social science. We have listed the specialized courses in these streams, as the general ones are already popular among people.

Q. To solicit inputs from national and international educational technology researchers and entrepreneurs is one of the functions of the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF). Would you please share some activities in this regard?

The NETF is not like the other organizations that have a hierarchy structure, and in this forum, we discuss on the futuristic technologies with academicians, technology veterans, and foreign scholars.

One thing we keep discussing among us is the probable dangers of artificial intelligence (AI), its limitations, regulations, and boundaries. We have been also discussing how to leverage the power of AI. Also, we are mulling over to come up with methods as how we can introduce AR/VR/MR and other methods like comics and animation in the school education.

Q. One Nation One Data is on the platter of NAAC and NBA for this year and onwards as it aims to bring all data submitted by HEIs on one platform. How did this provision come to light and how would the NAAC and NBA ensure that data of HEIs is not compromised?

No, it won’t be compromised at all. And the reason behind its provision is quite simple. Currently, all colleges and HEIs have to furnish and submit their data separately to all the regulatory authorities, from UGC to AICTE, to NAAC, and the others. In this situation, colleges often give this work to different people working within their campus. And because of this practice, often the data submitted by the same institute mismatch for two different regulatory authorities and sometimes that leads to suspicion of fake data.

That’s why we thought of submitting all the required data for assessment just once in a year. Because of this practice, HEIs will carefully submit all the data. All committees, sub-committees of HEIs will sit and double-check the inputs before submitting them over one portal.

So, the first advantage is that it will rule out the data-confusion. Second advantage is to our assessment process as we will send those data to our stakeholders for verification. It will give us the verifiable information of the institution if the data submitted by our own stakeholders are matching with the one institution submitted.

Q. So, when can we expect a proper document on One Nation One Data?

From the next year, it will come into force and you can expect a proper document on it by the end of this year.

Q. Please tell us the three top priorities of the council for the coming five years.

First priority is to bring all the colleges and help them in enhancing their quality via the binary accreditation. As I said, currently around 70% of the institutions in India are not accredited and thus we don’t even know their status and how they are in education. So, the first priority is to accredit all HEIs.

Second is to strengthen our maturity-based accreditation, which from Level-1 to 5, for those institutions that are doing well.

Third focus is to mentor and guide the institutions about how they can improve their basic infrastructure, functionalities, and other requirements within their campus by the help of faculties from IITs, IIMs, good universities and industry veterans.