Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Chennai: Eight arts and science colleges in Tamil Nadu have bagged the highest ‘A’ Grade awarded by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) during a reaccreditation exercise undertaken recently. Only one of the nine colleges from the state, which had submitted themselves for reaccreditation, secured the ‘B’ Grade.

The NAAC grants accreditation to a college from which at least two batches of graduates have passed out. It is a voluntary exercise and the accreditation granted is valid for a period of five years, at the end of which the institution concerned must submit itself for a reaccreditation exercise. “Nine institutions applied for reaccreditation and our peer teams inspected the premises and reviewed their academic facilities and infrastructural strengths. Based on the reports submitted by the peer teams, the grades were awarded recently. The Vivekananda College, an autonomous institution, in Madurai secured the highest Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 3.57 out of 4 from among the eight colleges which bagged the A Grade,” a NAAC official told The Times of India. The Auxilium College, also an autonomous arts and science college, in Vellore received the next best CGPA of 3.41 among the institutions from the state, followed by the Cauvery College for Women in Trichy which secured a CGPA of 3.37. Only the Coonoor-based Providence College for Women secured the B Grade with a CGPA of 2.92.

Meanwhile, the Bharathiar University in Coimbatore secured the ‘A’ Grade with a CGPA of 3.02 in the reaccreditation exercise. Incidentally, among six universities in the country which went in for reaccreditation, the Bharathiar University in Coimbatore is the only one to receive the ‘A’ Grade. Its former vice chancellor G Thiruvasagam is now the vice chancellor of the University of Madras.

Two deemed universities from Tamil Nadu, which had applied for accreditation in the university category for the first time, managed to get only the ‘B’ Grade. These institutions – Kalasalingam University in Srivilliputhur and the Chettinad Academy of Research and Education near Chennai, were incidentally blacklisted by a review committee constituted by the union human resources development ministry. The review committee recommended that they should be stripped of their deemed university status and reverted as colleges. However, the Supreme Court had later ordered status quo on the issue.