The University of Kerala has finally woken up to the need for re-accreditation by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). The university, which had completed almost five years without re-accreditation, submitted the letter of intent online to the NAAC, Bangalore, two weeks ago.
“Submitting the letter of intent is the first step towards seeking re-accreditation. In fact we had submitted the letter in May but NACC sought certain clarifications. The revised letter was submitted two weeks ago,” K. Mohammed Basheer, Registrar of the University, told The Hindu .
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The university’s five-year accreditation ended on March 20, 2008. Now with the letter of intent being submitted, the Internal Quality Assessment Cell (IQAC) of the university, had started collecting annual reports from departments for assessment, as mandated by NAAC, said a top university official associated with the re-accreditation work.
The annual reports, which included the pass percentage of students, academic activities and papers submitted by faculty, would be a yardstick for assessment for re-accreditation, he said.
A prime reason for the university’s reluctance to seek re-accreditation was the shortage in faculty. Its top brass had concluded that if the university had gone in for assessment a year ago, with its then staff strength, it would have been impossible to get a decent rating.
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The lacunae, he said, had been addressed with the filling of 30 to 35 posts in the past one year. The university had also constituted research councils and regularly conducted academic audit and performance evaluation of teachers by students, as required by NAAC.
“Even the IQAC was not operational for several years. The cell was constituted only a few months ago. A separate office has started functioning,” said another university official.