For Visva-Bharati, centenary turns out to be year of poor rankings

Teachers allege the onus of fall on Vice Chancellor

What would have made Rabindranath Tagore — had he been around today — frown deeper: that universities are being ranked, or that the university founded by him has not been rated highly by a national body? While his reaction is a matter of hypothesis, the fact is that Visva-Bharati has wrapped up its centenary year — already marked with controversies — by getting an unsatisfactory B+ grade from the NAAC.

The NAAC, or National Assessment and Accreditation Council, assesses and accredits higher education institutions every five years. A good score is not only an indicator of the quality of education in an institution but is also important for it to get projects and grants. During the previous assessment in 2015, the Santiniketan-based university had scored 2.82 on the four-point scale, earning a B++ and missing an ‘A’ by 0.18 points.

This year it got even less, only 2.65 points, or a B+ grade, something that detractors of Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty see as a validation of their allegations that education in the University has suffered during his tenure, which was marked mainly by a string of disciplinary action taken against teachers. Prof. Chakrabarty took charge in November 2018, and thus has been at the helm for three of the five years for which Visva-Bharati was assessed last week by the NAAC team.