The Hindu : AP engg. colleges way behind in accreditation race

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 26, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

AP engg. colleges way behind in accreditation race

By Aniket Alam

HYDERABAD June 25. Andhra Pradesh has only 22 out of a total list of 512 educational institutions accredited by the UGC's National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) all over the country. Worse still, for a State which prides itself on the expansion of technical education in the past few years, not one of its engineering colleges has been accredited by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA).

Universities and degree colleges are accredited by the NAAC after rating the educational institution over seven criteria including curriculum, teaching, research and development, infrastructure, student support and management on a nine point scale. Engineering Colleges are similarly rated by the NBA, which functions under the All-India Council of Technical Education.

Under the UGC's 10th Plan proposals, funding for universities and colleges would be made increasingly dependent on their NAAC ratings. Apart from that, accreditation is increasingly being taken as an objective measure for ranking educational institution by students, funding bodies as well as by employers. Tamil Nadu with 101 educational institutions accredited by NAAC, Karnataka with 77 and Kerala with 57 seem to have stolen a march over Andhra Pradesh in getting a quality stamp on their higher education.

C. Subba Rao, chairman, AP State Council for Higher Education, said the Government was taking keen interest in getting the State's educational institutions accredited and had allocated a separate fund in this year's budget for all Government and aided colleges to enable them to apply for accreditation.

On the technical education front, Prof. Subba Rao informed that the Council was undertaking a comprehensive audit of all engineering colleges in the State as per Government orders. This was akin to an internal assessment, which would enable the Council to classify the technical education institution on the basis of definite objective criteria. The audit of the first "batch'' of 37 engineering colleges had been completed and the results would be made public in the first week of July, he said.

Despite the low numbers of educational institutions which have gone for accreditation, those who have ventured forward have done well. The three Hyderabad-based universities, University of Hyderabad, Osmania University and Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages have all been classified as "five star.'' The Tirupati-based Sri Venkateswara University and Sri Padmavathi Mahila Visvavidyalayam as well as the Anantapur-based Sri Krishnadevaraya University have been given four stars. Andhra University, Vishakhapatnam, has been graded "A'' under the new system.

Speaking on the issue, Latha Pillai, Advisor, NAAC, suggested that the State Government could follow the precedent set by Karnataka and Haryana which had made accreditation with NAAC compulsory for its colleges. She said that as per their information, over 200 colleges and universities in Andhra Pradesh were in the process of getting accreditation at present.

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