Some Truths about Higher Education Regulation in India

After several years in management academia in India (with different institutions) and abroad it is
very difficult for one to not become critical of the Indian higher education accreditation and
regulatory agencies.
I write this in the interest of young academic colleagues who have to be in the system for the rest of
the working lives. I write this in the interest of this country and its grand tradition of respecting
knowledge and wisdom; of students who are subtly but strongly affected by the regulatory
leadership and of social entrepreneurs who are serious about private enterprise in higher education.
It is time academics in India spoke up. By speaking up one may appear to be rude but we need to
challenge the existing stupor. I am going to talk of the visiting domestic accreditation/ inspection
teams which are government bodies. They are often called peer-teams which is an Orwellian
euphemism for hastily-formed groups meant to fault-find about which I had written earlier about.
Here, in this piece, I will talk not of structural issues, but ground-level experience with visiting team
members. Not all visiting team members are responsible for the sorry state of affairs. But the overall
experience with visiting teams is pathetic. These things are not generally reported. But is important
to do this in the interest of the change the system is crying out for.
In the last several years in different institutions in India, the author, or his respected colleagues in
similar institutions, have had occasion to witness visiting teams to:
a) checking floor areas of various rooms with measuring tapes for checking narrow compliance with
guidelines.
b) talking disparagingly to faculty members and calling them one-by-one and asking probing
questions about salary and other facilities.
c) getting the institutions to make the exam department pretty much like a prison.
d) urging respected professors in charge of exams to be not trustful of students or fellow faculty in
very strong language when we know the system does best where trust prevails. Years of efforts to
develop social capital between faculty-faculty, faculty-student can go in vain with such toxic
interventions.
e) talking down to scholars from disciplines slightly away, qualification-wise, from the area in
which they are teaching about them being at the wrong place etc., when in fact they are doing some
wonderful across-discipline contributions to the students.
f) pompously comparing the institution being evaluated with other institutions the person had earlier
visited and making disparaging comments which have no practical value.
g) asking or ordering institutions to do things that have nothing to do with the vision/ mission of the
institutions.
h) expecting the host institutions to video-taping and take pictures of the proceeding as proof of the
team's visit to convince their bosses of the veracity of the team's visit.
i) expecting banners to welcoming the visiting team.
j) specifying the 5-star hotel in which they expect a lunch to be arranged.
k) seeking favors that amounts to corruption.
These things are unpleasant to talk of but talk we must for change to happen. These things brutalize
the academics in the hosts institutions as well as the members of the visiting teams themselves. The
society has to ask whether we need such low level control/ embarrassment mechanisms to ensure
quality?
There are great teachers and intellectuals in our country but what a low-down system?
Contrast this to the terms which the visiting team is expected to sign in the case of an international
accreditation agency from the US. Before the visit the members are expected to give an undertaking
to comply by the following personal undertaking which I have noticed they indeed comply with:
1. I will not discuss the self-study document or the institution to which I have been assigned as
an evaluator, either prior to or subsequent to the site visit.
2. I will work cooperatively and supportively with the team chairperson, team members, and
all institutional personnel with whom I interact prior to and during the site visit
3. will not consult with institutional personnel or make personal references to the business unit
with which I am affiliated as an example of how the business unit being visited should be
organized or conduct its affairs.
4. I will refrain from expressing my personal views with respect to whether the institution I
visit should or should not be accredited
5. I will receive, review, and become thoroughly familiar with the self-study document prior to
my arrival on site.
6. I will confine my activities as an evaluator to validating the information contained in the
self-study and will refrain from making qualitative judgments regarding any aspects of the
business unit I visit.
7. I will refrain from requiring institutional representatives to rewrite any portion of the self-
study document; rather, if additional information is required to validate any portion of the
self-study, I will so advise the chairperson who will determine the appropriate means
through which to obtain such information, and communicate such needs to the institution's
self-study coordinator.
8. I agree to submit the portion of the site visit report for which I am responsible to the team
chairperson within two weeks after the conclusion of the site visit.
9. I agree to receive reimbursement of all expenses I incur for travel, food, lodging, and local
transportation, if any for up to a maximum of three days.
10. I understand and agree to accept the amount of reimbursement determined appropriate by
the national office staff upon completion of an audit of my expenses.
11. I verify that I do not have any conflict of interest with the institution I am evaluating.
We need a complete overhaul of higher education governance in India. Unfortunately there is no
unified voice crying out. What educational institutions need is mentoring by truly capable and well-
intentioned team members followed by checks before granting markers for quality. Such individuals
are right here in our midst. But the system keeps them at arm's length.