The University of Kerala should ensure timely declaration of examination results and adhere strictly to its academic calendar, the peer team from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which visited the university in January, has recommended
The university should design courses which have strong industry linkages for providing better employment opportunities for students, a NAAC document sourced from the university says.
Placement mechanism
Along with taking steps to fill academic vacancies, the university should establish centralised instrumentation facilities with cutting-edge features and institute a placement mechanism for students.
The mentoring and counselling system should be strengthened. The university should also strengthen the culture of research in its departments, and especially in affiliated colleges.
Teachers should be encouraged to take up sponsored research projects and to innovate and consequently apply for more patents in their line of teaching. The university should have more inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary courses, the list of NAAC recommendations reads.
The presence of a large number of contract/guest teaching and non-teaching personnel has been listed by the NAAC as an institutional weakness.
There are many departments without professors and a couple of departments with just one teacher. There is no university-industry linkage and the university has inadequate clarity regarding the choice-based credit-and-semester system.
Institutional strength
A good demand for almost all courses and ‘qualified and competent’ faculty members have been listed by the peer team as institutional strengths. The International Centre for Kerala Studies has been rated as ‘vibrant’ by the NAAC team. There is scope for promotion of value-based education, for incentivising achievers, the peer team has recommended.
After its assessment in January, the peer team had given its highest rating ‘A’ to the university. The council reportedly gave the university a score of 3.03 on a four-point scale. The university was first accredited in 2003, and was given a B++ rating then. The university was without accreditation since 2008.
