The National Agricultural Education Accreditation Board (NAEAB) has granted Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) and its constituent colleges accreditation for a five-year period from March 11, 2024, to March 10, 2029, KAU officials said on Saturday. KAU has also improved its rating by securing an overall score of 3.14 out of 4, which is equivalent to a Grade A.
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In the previous term (2019 to 2023), the overall score had been 2.90 out of 4.00, which corresponds to Grade B.
The College of Agriculture, Ambalavayal, Wayanad, received accreditation for the first time. The accredited institutions include the Colleges of Agriculture at Vellanikkara (Thrissur), Vellayani (Thiruvananthapuram), Padannakkad (Kasaragod) and Ambalavayal, (Wayanad), the Kelappaji College of Agricultural Engineering and Food Technology, Tavanur, Malappuram; and the College of Forestry, Vellanikkara.
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“We are very happy to have improved our status to Grade A. There was some concern among the students regarding the accreditation, but we have got it back at A Grade. That shows substantial improvement in the last three years,” B. Ashok, Vice Chancellor, KAU said.
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, published a notification in this regard on July 12.
Accreditation was awarded to the BSc. (Hons.) Agriculture programs across all four colleges, as well as to the BSc (Hons.) Forestry, BTech Agricultural Engineering, and MBA Agribusiness Management programmes at the College of Cooperation, Banking and Management, Vellanikkara. Additionally, MSc, PhD and MTech programmes at the colleges have all received accreditation.
This achievement follows a rigorous peer review process by a team of experts led by J. S. Sandhu, former Vice-Chancellor of Sri Karan Narendra Agriculture University, Jobner, Rajasthan, KAU said.