Eye on ranking,Guwahati university awaits NAAC visit

GUWAHATI: Gauhati University (GU) has geared up to welcome the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) peer team. Currently ranked as a B-grade institute by the autonomous institution of the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2010, the third visit of NAAC is scheduled tentatively for May this year. The visit is going to be crucial for the university, which is eyeing an upgradation in the NAAC rankings, with a major infrastructural boost centered around its green campus.
At a time when a large number of students from other states of the country as well as the state are being attracted towards the IIT Guwahati and Tezpur University - two leading higher educational institutions of the state - GU authorities are putting in all its efforts to improve its NAAC ranking to catch the attention of prospective students.

The university authorities have put in an effort to turn the university premises into a green campus ahead of the NAAC visit. "Effort is on turn the GU into a green campus by installing LED lights and solar panels. A facelift has been given to the university campus since the last NAAC peer team visit in 2010. The hostels and university departments have gone through a drastic change since then," said an GU official.

He said GU has been giving emphasis on quality enhancement, research, teaching methodology, curriculum development, sports activities, hostel and departmental infrastructure as well as extension activities since the last visit of the NAAC peer team.

IIT Guwahati was named among the top 10 engineering institutes of India in the latest National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 'India Rankings 2018', released by Human Resources Development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar earlier this month, though the premier technology institute's position marginally slipped from last year's eighth rank to 12th in the overall category rankings.

In the all-important overall category, where all participating institutes across the country were adjudged, Tezpur University (46th), Gauhati University (61st) got berths in the top 100.

The official said GU, which is a state university, faces a major challenge from the two centrally-funded institutions as far as pumping of funds from the government is concerned.