The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) started its two-day reassessment of Maharaja’s College (Autonomous) here on Thursday.
The reassessment is done by a three-member NAAC delegation led by its Chairman Prakash C. Sarangi, former Vice Chancellor of Bhubaneswar-based Ravenshaw University; member coordinator Kinnari Thakkar, economic professor at Bombay University; and member Praveen Martis S.J., former principal of St. Aloysius College (Autonomous), Mangaluru.
While the delegation is expected to submit its report shortly after its visit, the college remains expectant of the highest possible grading.
The NAAC team met Principal Mathew George and academic council and governing council members, besides visiting various departments. They also had an interaction with students, parents, and alumni. The day’s proceedings were wrapped up with a cultural fete by students.
The reassessment and subsequent meetings and interactions between NAAC delegation and the college authorities were held in compliance with the COVID-19 protocol and the pandemic-related guidelines issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC). The number of persons attending the meetings was also restricted.
The team will inspect the college ground on Friday morning before concluding its visit in the evening.
This is the fourth-level reassessment of the college, which received three-star rating on February 7, 2000, followed by A grade on May 21, 2006, and A grade with a grade point average (GPA) of 3.11 on March 23, 2013.
The reassessment by NAAC is usually held every five years. But Maharaja’s College started functioning as an autonomous institution during the 2015-16 academic year, thus making the reassessment due only in 2020, as the accreditation was extended till December 2019.
The college had submitted the Self Study Report (SSR) in time, and the NAAC reassessment was scheduled for January last year but was postponed in the wake of the pandemic outbreak.
Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac, former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, former judge P.S. Gopinath, CICC Jayachandran, Rohini Nair, Mary Metilda, screenplay writer Bipin Chandran, and actor Aparna Sivakamy were among those who participated in interactions that the NAAC team had with the college alumni.
