oppn parties The Rot In NAAC Needs To Be Addressed Fast

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  • A Pakistani drone with 1.58kg heroin was seized by the BSF in Sriganganagar district of Rajasthan
  • 2 persons were arrested in Ramban district of J&K with cocaine worth Rs 300cr in international markets
  • Cars and SUV record bumper sales ahead of festive months and were at all-time monthly high in September
  • GST collection in September rose 10% (Y-o-Y) to Rs 1.62 lakh crore
  • The Centre is expecting strong retail sales in the festival months ahead to boost domestic demand
  • The Tripura HC cited SC rulings and guidelines to order cops not to make automatic arrests in Section 498A cases of harassment of women by husband or in-laws
  • Kannada actor Nagabhushana NS was arrested for negligent driving after hitting a couple in Bengaluru. The woman (43) died while her husband is severely injured
  • Additional sessions court in Muzaffarnagar acquits 8 in the 2013 riots case in the city
  • Asian Games: Heartbreak for golfer Aditi Ashok as she falters on the final day and settles for silver after leading the pack comfortably all along
  • Asian Games: Men's badminton team gets silver, the first medal for the country after 37 years
  • Asian Games: Jyothi Yarraji wins bronze in 100m hxurdles but gets upgraded to sailver after China's Wu Yanni is disqualified for false start
  • Asian Games: Men's trap shooting team wins gold. India won 22 medals in shooting - 7 golds, 9 silvers and 6 bronzes, their highest tally ever
  • Asian Games: With 15 medals, it was India's best day at the Games with Avinash Sable becoming the first Indian to win gold in men's 3000m steeplechase and Tajinderpal Singh Toor successfully defended his shot put gold of 2018 Games
  • Core sector grows at 12% in August, the highest in 14 months, with 5 out of 8 sectors registering double-digit growth
  • Stocks recover on Friday: Sensex gains 320 points to 65828 and Nifty 114 points to 19638
4 arrested for the alleged muder of two missing Imphal students in Manipur
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The Rot In NAAC Needs To Be Addressed Fast

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-03-10 07:45:15

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is an independent body under the University Grants Commission (UGC). It is tasked with assessing institutions of higher education on various parameters for the quality of education they impart and accredit them by awarding grades. Students go by the NAAC accreditation to judge a college or university before taking admission as it is meant to assure them about the quality of education imparted in that college or university. But the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) has now pulled up NAAC for having 'discrepancies' in the processes it uses to assess the institutions and has charged the body with awarding points 'arbitrarily'. NAAC, on its part, has not agreed to the CAG assessment and has issued a note which says that its processes were "robust, transparent, ICT-driven and automated" and its assessments were "done transparently and professionally". But CAG has cited several instances where the grades awarded by peer team members were not in line with the submission made by the colleges and this happened in 29% cases or in 41 out of 133 cases checked by CAG. It has also found that points were awarded for facilities that did not exist in some institutions.

The adverse remarks by CAG come close on heels of the resignation of Bhushan Patwardhan, the executive committee chairperson of NAAC. Patwardhan resigned to "safeguard the sanctity" of the post. He was appointed just a year earlier and had since then flagged many irregularities in the functioning of the body. He had also written to the UGC chairman M Jagadesh Kumar in February pointing out that some institutions were getting "questionable grades" due to "vested interests and malpractices". Reports had earlier suggested that some peer teams had been bribed by some institutions to get better grades. Since the matter is about the quality of education, the UGC must act and set the house in order otherwise there will be nothing left of the NAAC motto of excellence, credibility and relevance.