On Lining up Elephants to Greet Assessors

 

There are certain schools which do not permit birthday celebrations of the traditional kinds. The chocolates, cakes and the like are not let in in to the schools. This is because the kids and the parents get caught in the cake race and it puts pressure on them. To out-cake and out-toffee one another, the number and nature of the sweets distributed rise and many get caught in the competitive frenzy. Hence these schools accept books to the library or have the birthday girl /boy plant a sapling. An awareness about the anniversary of the day on which one is born can be put to many uses. A book or a tree obviously is better, for me, than joining the toffee-race. 

The analogy occurred to me thinking of the growing spectacle of NAAC Peer Team reception these days in certain colleges. The spectacle is growing and is getting more and more spectacular, college after college, Peer Team visit after visit.  This is because certain HEIs in Kerala seem to have made up their minds on winning scores during accreditation visits with the spectacular. If the videos and pics which surface after each visit are anything to go by, we are in for a massive treat for the eye. These are exciting times for the academia from these perspectives. The idea of welcoming assessor-guest has burgeoned.

At this rate soon we will soon have elephants lining up at the entrance of the some of the colleges around to greet the NAAC Peer Team. Perhaps the procession may start a kilometer off the entrance of the college so that more room can be made for more elephants. One can't help thinking of the novel practices that have sprung up in connection with marriage reception ceremonies around us. Like the bride being led from one corner of the reception hall to the other with great splendor, with swaying bodies in accompaniment, surrounded by gawking cameras. With the competition among certain colleges hotting up viz a viz reception of the Peer Team, there is a market opening for the event management teams to sell their wares. It is a matter of time before the event management groups will step in with more colorful ideas to lead the Peer Team in. (Who knows! Perhaps they already are doing it!) Perhaps with a celebrity film star alumni edging out the Head of the institution and management representatives to greet the visiting team. Open Jeep for the visiting team to travel, with the students made to gather on the sidewalks, to wave and to be waved back. Tableau depicting the milestones in the growth of the HEI at the sidewalks as side shows. Video wall to continuously, seamlessly, scroll the glittering achievements in arts and sports. A couple of statues of the founding mothers of the campus to be garlanded by the notables of the community in the presence of the biggies around. Hoisting the institutional flag by the president of the college. The possibilities are endless and the Innovation Cell of the college too may be asked to assist the HEI to work out novel modes and manners in making the reception-spectacle worthy of it. 

There are plenty of reasons for the HEIs to rein in their urge to go a couple of levels up to steal the show over the other colleges in the show-department. A former colleague of mine brought the matter of indiscriminate, insensible, trivialized use of art forms and symbols of rituals as decorative pieces to show a college off during such reception-spectacles. There are any number of instances to prove that these acts of the institutions have nothing to do with the way these are rated by the assessors. The Teams generally go about their ways tolerating the reception part even when it crosses limits. The annoyance can sometimes be made out from their faces though. Moreover, such reception- spectacle attempts to turn the whole exercise into a show of surfaces.

Gone are the days when the head of the HEI, IQAC coordinator and the head of the Management committee stood with folded hands, warm smile and a bunch of flowers to welcome the team in. Then came the ceremonial NCC salute, then the lining up of a bunch of girl students with platter, followed by more students at the entrance, afterwards much more students started turning up to wave and clap, then different groups of students to hold flowers, wave festoons, the paraphernalia which are usually connected to festivals. The show has grown. It is growing. A helicopter is yet to shower flowers, to the best of my knowledge, though my knowledge could be limited. 

A Peer Team Chair once told me how the receiving team at an airport missed his presence as they ran after those wearing coats and he was in slacks, and the other two in coats! Who wouldn't like to add a dash of color to things?! Change is inevitable too. But the show seems to be getting out of hand, switching attention to where it needn't rest too long. Its time both the HEI leadership and the NAAC authorities got down to business of drawing lines, pressing the reset button. There still are HEIs around who make a dignified, controlled show of the reception, without being swayed by the reception-spectacle around. Let us be prudent enough to follow the wise models. 

 Babu. P. K.,  Ph D