NU’s ‘last warning’ on affiliation, but no clarity on edu colleges

Nagpur: The Nagpur University (NU) has served another ultimatum to an unspecified number of colleges, asking them to invite Local Enquiry Committee (LEC) for inspection before March 10 and renew affiliation, or it would freeze admissions in the upcoming session.
Several colleges said the letter was sent to education colleges also, though separate norms and procedure for them to run courses are still being framed.

The LEC report is important to seek continuation of affiliation by colleges. As per NU schedule, two months — November 16 to January 15 — were reserved for LEC visits, but since “100 colleges” failed to get themselves inspected, the deadline was extended to February 10. Surprisingly, the fresh extension came after NU claimed that many of these colleges had invited LEC after the January 20 letter.

Then, on March 1, the NU again issued a letter to all affiliated colleges asking them to invite LEC before March 10.

On both occasions, the NU letters didn’t mention the exact number of colleges who haven’t done the needful to seek continuation of affiliation, or exempted teachers education institutions (TEIs).

On Thursday, a college section official said some affiliated colleges had asked for another extension. The official this time claimed that only “20 colleges” have been warned while “100” hadn’t completed the process before January 15.

On January 29, TOI had reported about the first extension given to “100 colleges”. Originally, 280 colleges were due for continuation of affiliation this year, and as per the college section “180” had completed the process in time.

On the other hand, NU is unlikely to start the LEC inspection for all education colleges by March 10. On Wednesday, acting vice chancellor Pramod Yeole only said that the new direction and pro-forma as per National Council for Teachers Education (NCTE) was ready, and LEC visits for them would start soon.

TOI learns that the new direction is likely to be mellowed down to “save” TEIs from shutting down. “The NU will have to be considerate to these colleges, and can’t blindly implement the tough NCTE norms, which will spell doom for at least 45 of the 55 TEIs,” a source said.

The source added that the NCTE norms were incorporated in toto, and would create a situation similar to when suddenly 250 colleges were banned by NU.

In fact, many TEIs have already started removing deficiencies after they came to know about NU’s new directions. Many TEIs affiliated to NU are currently running with just one teacher, and have advertised vacant posts from principals to librarians to prevent closure.