Join BEd colleges at your own risk: Acting BU V-C

Varsity gives 3 months time for erring colleges to comply with norms

Students can join BEd colleges affiliated to the Bangalore University at their own risk, acting vice-chancellor of the university Rangaswamy has said.

The university has decided to renew affiliation to several teacher education colleges that have been identified with gross irregularities. The acting vice-chancellor said the students will have to check the credentials of the colleges before seeking admission.

“The university cannot make any advance commitment to students about the future course of action the university will take against the erring colleges,” Rangaswamy told the media on Wednesday.

In the Syndicate meeting held on Wednesday, the university decided to renew affiliation to colleges on a condition that the colleges will comply with the prescribed parameters for quality within the next three months.

“Notices will be sent to teacher education colleges identified for irregularities and they will have to comply with the standards within three months. If they fail to do so, action will be initiated against them,” Rangaswamy said.

He was speaking about the BEd colleges affiliated to the university that have been recently inspected by the University BEd Task Force.

The Task Force had inspected 100 BEd colleges affiliated to BU, out of which only 12 were found to be complying with the prescribed norms for infrastructure and instructional facilities. In the rest of the colleges, various irregularities were found. Disaffiliation was recommended for more than 40 such colleges.

The Academic Council of the university had accepted the report of the task force last week. The Syndicate, in its meeting on Wednesday, accepted the report, with a rider that instead of disaffiliation, the colleges will be given three months’ time to comply with the university norms.

However, the university has not taken any decision on the future of studentss in case the colleges failed to comply with the norms. The university has also not taken any decision on the action to be initiated against the erring colleges. “We have not decided on anything now. There are three more months to go,” Rangaswamy said.

Even last year, the university had failed to initiate any action against erring colleges and had permitted them to conduct exams. Results of the exams were also given, reasoning that the colleges were given permission for exams as they had already admitted students.

The task force report mentions that many of the blacklisted BEd colleges affiliated to BU had not even conducted classes and the students had directly appeared for the exam. Some of the colleges, as per the task force report, do not even have a building and exist only on paper.

On being questioned how such colleges will be able to construct buildings within three months, Rangaswamy said it will be decided in the Syndicate meeting.

Since it was too late for the university to initiate action against erring colleges after the admissions last year, the varsity had permitted them to conduct exams after a warning. The task force was constituted by former V-C Prabhu Dev in order to take strict action against the colleges with irregularities. Now, the same colleges have been given affiliation and with no future course of action planned.