NAAC Demerits : Letter to VC : Also Link to YouTube video of speech of FEDCUTA President Dr. Aditya Narayan Mishra at AMUTA Staff Club

ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION, ALIGARH

S. Mustafa Zaidi Hony. Secretary

Teaching Staff Club, AMU, Aligarh, 202002 0571-3203520(O); 0571-2720011 (R); 09411802364 (M) Email: secretaryamuta@gmail.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AMUTeachers Blog: http://www.secretaryamuta.blogspot.com

June 7, 2011

The Vice-Chancellor

A.M.U., Aligarh

Sir,

                After the sine-die closure of the University, suddenly every one got busy in NAAC accreditation activities as instructed by you. This issue was discussed threadbare by the Executive Committee of the AMUTA in its meeting held on June 03, 2011, in the backdrop of the developments and discussions held both here as well as at the national level in the past, of the resolution of the FEDCUTA Executive of May 19, 2011, and resolved that AMU “should reject any kind of rating/assessment by NAAC since the same would be subjecting the faculty to assessment by babus, which is bound to impinge on the autonomy of academic institutions and trigger a rat race for funds between various Universities and even departments within the same University.”

 I would also like to inform you that the Academic Council (under the Chairmanship of your distinguished predecessor Mr. Mohd. Hamid Ansari) had rejected the proposal of NAAC assessment in 2000-2001, as not really applicable and meant for Govt. Universities especially Central Universities as our funds do not depend upon any funding agency except the Govt. which is legally bound to fund us.

NAAC was conceived of at a time when privatization of higher education was on the anvil. Questions were being raised about the maintenance of quality in the private colleges and proposed universities, similarly some criteria were required to assess the dispersal of funds to State Govt. Universities (that get their primary funds from the State Govt.) by the Central Govt. funding agencies. Central Universities that get their complete funding from UGC were not originally covered, they were brought in much later, as an afterthought.  

All other Central Universities at that time had rejected the proposal. As of date JNU, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi University and IGNOU in Delhi have not been accredited, in

UP Dr.

BRA University Lucknow, BHU and Allahabad University have also not gone in for accreditation, only some of the new Central Universities have undertaken this exercise. In AMU, a few years back, when the UGC deducted some funds from the maintenance grant then a preliminary exercise was done. What happened to that exercise? This was again taken up when you became Vice-Chancellor AMU. Why are you repeating the same exercise the third time? What was lacking in the previous assessment that a new effort has to be made?

I trust you would agree that as educated people we should be convinced of the need/requirement/efficacy of an exercise for us to take it up. Just because UGC or any other Govt. agency desires something, shouldn’t become the sine qua non of its implementation. An opinion has also been expressed that accreditation impinges on our autonomy, on our capacity to tailor courses according to our special needs, on our capability to customise our education according to the socio-economic mix of our students, it emasculates innovation by prescribing a one size fits all formula that ultimately benefits the elite and not the deprived towards whom most of our efforts should be aimed.

The internal cost of going through this exercise in terms of manpower, man-days and of shifting focus away from teaching, evaluation and research even in monetary terminology shall be unaffordable and unreasonable. However in educational institutions it is the qualitative input which matters and there the implications of teachers being kept away from learning and research is mind boggling, but for what purpose? Has anyone done any cost benefit analysis of how the flows of funds have increased in institutions that have been accredited? Does anyone have any authentic facts and figures? We would with due respect point out that these are self serving exercises conceived to curb innovation, local variation and thus autonomy, and to perpetuate the hold of bureaucracy on educational institutions. By coming up with schemes like this they have the benefit of making self fulfilling prophesies.

Even a cursory perusal of the forms which are being distributed shall show their shallowness, some questions which are in form of pious hopes require a ‘yes” or ‘no’! do you think anyone shall say ‘no’? Similarly many questions being asked already have an answer in the central database of the University.

            May I also suggest, this exercise, if it has to be done at all and if it is to be carried out during summer vacations, then teachers are definitely entitled to Detention Leave on day to day basis.

In the end on behalf of AMUTA I would request you to have wider consultations and think through the implications, before you reach a point of no return.

With regards,

Sincerely yours,

(S. Mustafa Zaidi)

Pl find the link for Dr Aditya on NAAC.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSKIcTQqeOI