BU not to grant affiliation to 23 B.Ed. colleges this year

Seeking to draw curtains on the controversy surrounding Bangalore University’s B.Ed. colleges, the varsity’s Academic Council, on Tuesday, decided to not grant affiliation to 23 colleges for this academic year.

The resolution put an end to the war of words between the members over the report of a “high-power committee”, which had recommended affiliation to 29 out of 37 erring B.Ed. colleges.

Vice-Chancellor B. Thimme Gowda said only the 14 colleges that had scored over 100 (out of 200) in the assessment would be granted affiliation. “However, even these will be visited by the local inquiry committees that will give the final verdict by the end of next week,” he added.

The 14 colleges that Mr. Thimme Gowda mentioned include four colleges — Noorie College of Education, Aristotle College of Education, Shuttaria College of Education and Sri Krishna College of Education — that H. Karan Kumar, chairperson of the BU’s task force on teacher education, claimed were “non-existent”.

The Council decided to allow students who had failed to appear for exams beyond the maximum stipulated time so they can complete the degree. Registrar (Evaluation) R.K. Somashekhar said, “For three-year UG courses, the maximum time to pass is six years, for postgraduation it is four years, and for five-year courses, it is 10 years.”

Governing council

The Council also decided to appoint university nominees to the governing councils of colleges where there were none, and impose penalty on colleges that do not conduct governing council meetings regularly and also on those that do not invite varsity nominees to those meetings.