PU’s NAAC accreditation extended for two years

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 11

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has informed Panjab University (PU) that its accreditation is extended for two years till June 2022. Earlier, it was till 2020.

On June 25, 2015, the PU was granted A-grade with 3.35 marks out of 4. It is at the 9th rank among universities in country, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) tops the chart with 3.91 marks.

The PU now has to prepare for the 4th round of the NAAC. Director, Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), Prof M Rajivlochan, said meeting various parameters for the fourth round of the NAAC accreditation required completely transparent and digitised record maintenance at the university.

He said, “For the 4th round, the overall data about academic, administrative, board of studies’ meetings, admission process, attendance and feedback should be available online and should be verifiable online only. We are happy that we have two more years. About 70 per cent marks in the 4th round are for digitisation,” said Prof Rajivlochan.

A statutory meeting of the IQAC was held at the PU, under Vice-Chancellor Prof Arun Kumar Grover.

During the meeting, Dean of University Instructions Prof Meenakshi Malhotra pointed out the steps taken for digitising admissions and attendance. Registrar Col GS Chadha (Retd) highlighted the steps taken by the administration in moving towards digitisation of various services. The online admissions for hostels have also been started. 

It has been pointed out that use of the functionalities in the campus portal remained indifferent and many branches seemed to spend time and money to create their own private applications, thus compromising PU’s digital security. The VC Office and the DUI Office remained resistant to using online diary entry systems, said sources. The online billing remained virtually unused even though it would have saved thousands of working hours.

Audit of departments

Former Union Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal underlined the need for a comprehensive review of the syllabus of the departmental courses and the manner in which they were delivered to students. Regarding the Law Department syllabus, he said there was overlap within semesters and redundant things were being taught.

Prof Akshay Kumar, Dean Languages, is working on the audit of the syllabi of departments. Prof Ranjan Kumar is working on the consolidation of small departments.

Pilot survey

Assistant Professor Surbhi Goel, Department of English, conducted a pilot study of one month on the PU news, which showed that 80 per cent news is from official handouts or official sources. Over 1 per cent is critical.