The controversy surrounding the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) cannot be overstated. As an apex organization and a public autonomous body of the Indian Government, NAAC is entrusted with the “performance evaluation, assessment and accreditation” of higher education institutions. The University Grants Commission describes NAAC’s role as being one offering valuable feedback allowing institutions to harness their resources and capabilities. The failure of NAAC to meet the standards of intellectual integrity and academic ethics is not simply a structural lapse but points to deeper anxieties about a total quantification of the university. This neoliberal turn where critical qualitative differences among Universities are reduced to numerical scores-neatly ranked and rated- raises questions about whether ratings can be understood as methodology or an ideology of the “audit society”. Michael Power (2011) in his provocative repertoire on auditing, accountability and control of economic and political systems, warns us of an administrative evangelism where intellectual pluralism is sacrificed at the altar of objectivity. Hence, instrumental ways of addressing NAAC’s failure through e-inspection (or a “surgical strike”, as a top NAAC official would like to call it) are sterile attempts without asking uncomfortable questions.

 In the aftermath of this “scandal”, the questions that perhaps should animate the future imaginations of the University include: How do the increasingly numerocratic practices of assessing the “performance” of Universities affect overall knowledge production as academics are caught in the precarious race of generating “outputs”? Or how does the ascendancy of “interdisciplinarity” (an important marker for higher NAAC ratings) undermine foundational learning among students and stall important, basic research?  Or, how far can an obsession with “skills and innovation” take us to actualize engaged academic citizenship? And finally, how do we address the anti-intellectual complicity of state and universities in producing students as workers and managers of the skill economy and not as individuals who can think critically?

In the defense of thinking

Why is thinking important anyway, one may ask? Caught in the seductive triad of skill-innovation solutions, thinking may seem like a useless virtue with no returns. The neoliberal rationality of higher education makes thinking an unpopular pedagogical practice that is disruptive, inefficient and time-consuming. An implication of this institutional disdain for critical thinking is most potently reflected in curriculum design and teaching programs obsessed with “benchmarking” and “outcome-based” learning goals.  The problem with these regimes of rankings and outcomes is that they stifle the core of what education should be -the promise and the power of imagination, intellectual autonomy and public reasoning.  The dangers of relying on quantifiable measures of outcomes, learnings and productivity means that we are collectively neglectful of the idea that university is a public good and a democratic public sphere. Our collective subservience to the demands of a consumer model of education implies that we are creating glorified technicians rather than critical citizens. A Metrics-driven learning risks pedagogic reductionism where content that “fits” and “maps” into course “outcomes” are considered as only forms of viable knowledge. Significant to this perpetuation of mediocrity is the classification of courses and curricula based on outdated rubrics (e.g. Bloom’s taxonomy).

To be sure, this damage is not limited to abstract ideals of intellectual freedom, justice and equality. It deeply affects the current generation of students and young people. Bereft of critical education and thinking, young people will find it increasingly challenging to translate private troubles into public concerns- a necessary life skill (and an equally essential aspect of nurturing a democratic vision). No wonder why we see epidemic proportions of young people on University campuses struggling with loneliness, mood disorientation and self-belief. A chronic disavowment of asking questions or challenging the corporate logic of education in higher education settings instead produces a “vulnerable student”- an ideal neoliberal subject who can then be subjected to intervention and therapy. Furedi (2017) provocatively calls this the “Therapeutic University”- one where the cultural problem of stripping students/young people of their intellectual and emotional resources through metrics of “performance”  is masqueraded as a medical problem. Subsequently, University systems usher a ‘pedagogy of comfort’ that requires students to feel positive and well at all times without questioning hegemonic structures of power or critically engaging with uncomfortable ideas. If the radical potential of thinking is taken away from young people through a diabolic alliance among (uncritical) education, administrative supremacy, and therapy culture- where are we headed?

It is time to be angry again?

Feminist writer Audre Lorde’s invocation and reclaiming of anger is a useful starting point (Sister Outsider, 1981). The world has seen increasing visibility and an acknowledgement of the emancipatory potential of (female) fury (think of #MeToo, #BansOffOurBodies, or #DalitLivesMatter). Lorde’s summoning of anger, or Sara Ahmed’s conjuring of rageful “killjoys” reminds us how anger can be energizing, a shared political resource, a generative tool that can resist the bulwark of metricization of higher education. Notably, the plea is not merely to summon anger but to harness it. In this framing, feminist rage is loaded with information and energy, it is not destructive or defensive, but generative and destabilizing. Hence, it is not about individualized fury, rather it gains political traction in collective questioning of comfortable certainties. This rage can offer a potent counter-narrative to the Walmartization of higher education that treats students and teachers as “data subjects” whose loyalties are expected to lie with the reputation-raising gig of “marketing and branding”. It is the same rage that allows for a recognition that true education is not about training and skilling, but instilling in students the courage of radical imaginations. To harness this rage, we need to vocalize and listen to others. Academics as teachers and public intellectuals need to question the instrumental rationality of metrics, and performance rankings. As much as the uncritical datafied turn of the University systems would like us to believe, there is nothing utopian about algorithms and rankings. It traps academic labour in an unpredictable volatility of highs and lows. Arguably, what is needed in these times of crisis is  “staying with the trouble, sticking with the mess, and committing to the hard work of repair collectively, not individually.” (Banet-Weiser, 2019)

That said, there is no denying that measurement matters. Data infrastructures, rubrics, and metrics are here to stay. However, adhering to the dominant logic that “anything that is not quantifiable, is not important” risks homogenizing learnings and experiences, demoting intellectualism to procedural mechanics and slowly and imperceptibly chipping away democratic engagement with the publics. To be sure, reimagining the University as a transformative social good is a profound commitment requiring both creativity and originality. Or, to put it in pop corporate jargon—there are no “low-hanging fruits” to reform the University.
No shi*, Sherlock!

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Tannistha Samanta is an academic based out of Pune, Maharashtra. She is currently a Senior Fellow with the College for Social Sciences & Humanities, University Alliance Ruhr, Germany.
@tannisthas.bsky.social