national assessment and accreditation council – Canada India Education Council

Source: The Times of India via PwC – EdLive

The UGC has invited proposals from universities to introduce a scheme, ‘Innovation Universities’. Financial support will be given to universities during the XIIth plan for innovative teaching, innovative research programmes and organisational innovations. Only universities which have received Grade ‘A’ by National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) can apply. The basic objective is to promote innovative ways of learning, sharing and collectively growing within and without. The scheme is meant to support bold and big ideas that require substantial support and flexibility, ideas that usually do not fit into any of the existing patterns of funding and do not see the light of the day. The proposed scheme does not cover up gradation of the overall infrastructure of the university, creation of new departments and centres in the established disciplines or those covered by existing schemes such as areas and women studies, routine improvements in teaching, teachers training and updating of curricula and supporting professional associations and bodies of researchers and regular implementation of the UGC regulations and guidelines about quality improvement and assessment.

Source: The Indian Express via PwC – EdLive

Academics have expressed reservations over the special exemptions granted to government-run institutions in the new regulations released by the University Grants Commission (UGC) with regard to collaborations with foreign universities. The UGC recently approved regulations through which foreign universities could venture into India and collaborate with Indian institutions. While this was widely seen as a backdoor measure, given the fact that opposition pressure in Parliament had kept the Foreign Universities Bill out of light, the governing body provided wide-ranging prescriptions for such partnerships. According to the regulations, only institutions with an ‘A’ rating from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) would be eligible for such an agreement. The institutions must also have at least five years of experience in providing post- graduate courses. However, government- run institutions, both at the state and central levels, have been exempted from both these clauses.

Chairman of the Board of Governors at IIT-Kanpur, M Anandakrishnan, said that the regulations, which were yet to be notified, would ensure that only respectable institutions could get into such collaborations. However, he opined that the clause exempting the government-run institutions from such minimum qualification, such as NAAC accreditation, should be dropped. “There is still scope for change as the norms are yet to be notified. Government institutions should not be excluded from such quality norms,” he pointed out.