HYDERABAD: AS centenary celebrations of Osmania University (OU) near, the university administration is scrambling to get it accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).
NAAC accreditation is valid for five years but OU’s ‘A’ grade from NAAC expired in February 2013. OU had applied for accreditation in the 2015-16 academic year and NAAC was ready to send its team to conduct an inspection. However, as vice chancellor had not yet been appointed to the varsity, it was not ready for the inspection.
While the VC was appointed last July, the university did not apply for its accreditation till this March, a full eight months later. The university received a Letter of Intent from NAAC just days ago to conduct inspections but with centenary celebrations scheduled to begin in 23 days, it seems like the university will enter its centenary year without accreditation.
NAAC accreditation is given after inspecting various parameters relating to the university’s infrastructure, academics, student support mechanisms and also manpower. A big negative on the university’s scoresheet would be the shortage of faculty.
In 2008 when the university was given ‘A’ grade by NAAC, OU had 838 full-time and 224 part-time faculty members. Come 2017, as per its Self-Study Report, it has just 377 permanent and 92 part-time faculty members.
Moreover, as per University Grants Commission guidelines the ideal composition of faculty in a university department is one Professor, two Associate Professors and four Assistant Professors. Sadly, in OU there are many departments which do not have even a single Professor. The number of Associate Professors in university is 38 as against the sanctioned strength of 356.