Ronita Torcato
While Mumbai University has granted ’empowered autonomy’ status to a dozen colleges in the city, allowing them to issue their own degrees, it has issued show cause notices to 360 colleges for de-affiliation. When considering other universities across Maharashtra state, the total number of such colleges reaches a startling 1400.
Accreditation serves as an indicator of quality, and it’s uncertain what quality standards these unaccredited institutes uphold. Colleges lacking accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) or the National Board of Accreditation will soon receive de-affiliation notices as per a directive from the Minister of Higher Education, Chandrakant Patil.
In Pune, Savitribai Phule University will issue show cause notices to colleges that haven’t applied for NAAC accreditation.
Currently, according to Vice Chancellor Ravindra Kulkarni, 410 MU-affiliated colleges lack NAAC grading, including 50 whose applications are under review.
During a recent meeting between Higher Education Minister Patil, various VCs, and registrars, the education department learned that 368 colleges had submitted their IIQA (institutional information for quality assessment).
Minister Patil, expressing strong disapproval, has ordered show cause notices, citing section 109 (6a) of the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016, to be sent to colleges yet to submit NAAC applications.
The list of non-compliant colleges will be published on university websites, informing students about the risks of enrolling in such institutions.
Director of Higher Education Shailendra Deolankar mentioned, “We have been sending reminders to defaulting colleges, and at least 40 have responded and applied for accreditation.”