The five state universities, Ranchi University (RU), Kolhan University (KU), Nilamber Pitamber University (NPU), Vinoba Bhave University (VBU) and Sido Kanhu Murmu University (SKMU) are failing consistently in getting grants from University Grant Commission. Reason behind is all these universities have not been inspected by National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in recent times.
Unfortunately, except the RU, none of the four state universities have been able to have NAAC visit ever. RU is also unable to conduct NAAC inspection for past many years. Though its autonomous St Xavier’s College was visited and graded by NAAC last year.
The university Vice Chancellor (VC) feels NAAC inspection is the need of the hour since it affects the grading of a higher education institution essential to be among the noted list of state universities. RU VC Dr lN Bhagat said, “We do not fulfill the criteria required for NAAC inspection with regard to teacher’s availability. 9, 115 and 200 posts for Principals, Readers and lecturers are vacant at RU, respectively.
The state government is trying to fill up the vacant posts. Infact, because of this no recent NAAC inspection, we were unable to avail a special UGC grant of around Rs 25 to 100 crores recently. By the end of this month we would be sending NAAC a ‘letter of intent’ regarding their visit to our university.”
NAAC identifies seven aspects in a university. This involves Curricular aspects, Teaching-learning and evaluation, Research, Consultancy and Extension, Infrastructure and learning process, Student support and progression, Governance and leadership along with Innovative practices as the basis for its assessment procedure.
Now, when NAAC accreditation is mandatory for survival of any University, most of these universities are lining up for the inspection process of NAAC despite not fulfilling the basic NAAC norms.
As per NPU officials infrastructure hurdles, teacher’s shortage and lack of government’s attention is their university’s drawback to grab NAAC’s attention since its establishment in 2009.
“Our University has still not been able to get the financial assistance provision known as B12 registered by UGC. Because of this we are not entitled for any financial grant from UGC. There are certain criteria which we have to fulfill such as number of teachers and so on. But, now each University needs to have NAAC irrespective of the fact that it has B12 or not so we are initiating the process of NAAC. We have asked the colleges to prepare the draft and send it to NAAC within a month,” NPU VC Dr Firoz Ahmad informed.
Kolhan University (KU) Registrar Dr KC Dey said, “Previously, NAAC inspection has not been done at KU. At Jamshedpur Women’s College and some colleges of Chaibasa it was done but in a queue it has never been done. This is a newly established university and we do not fulfill the NAAC’s criteria yet. Now, we have asked our colleges to get it done at the earliest. Within a month we shall send the proposal for NAAC inspections at some of our colleges.”
“The sanctioned teacher posts for our university are pending at the state government level. We lack teachers. This is the major reason we are unable to approach for NAAC accreditation,” said VC Dr Ravindra Nath Bhagat.
“NAAC has never inspected our university,” conceded SKMU Pro-VC Dr R Prasad without disclosing the details.