BU to cancel affiliations of errant BEd colleges

After dilly dallying for nearly seven months, Bangalore University (BU) has decided to accept the recommendations of the BU Task Force to cancel the affiliation of errant BEd colleges.

The Task Force had assessed of over 100 BÉd colleges and submitted its report in November 2012. However, owing to a difference of opinion among Academic Council and Syndicate members over the suggestions made in the report, BU had formed three expert committees to validate the findings of the Task Force.

The BU Academic Council in its meeting on Thursday accepted the report of the first expert committee headed by Prof V Sudhakar Rao from the English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad that recommended disaffiliation of all the 15 BEd colleges that it had assessed.

This validated the recommendation of the Task Force on ‘irregularities’ under category III of its report. 

The Council, however, rejected the report of the second expert committee headed by Dr A S Seetharam, consultant, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan,  and the report of the third expert committee headed by Prof Nanjappa P Shahapur from the Department of Education at Karnatak University, Dharwad on the grounds that the reports were ‘incomplete’ and ‘inadequate.’  

Dr A S Seetharam committee recommended disaffiliation of four of the 20 colleges whereas Prof Nanjappa panel recommended disaffiliation of 11 out of 25 colleges.
The Council also resolved to ‘permanently disaffiliate,’ nine colleges that were ‘blacklisted’ in the Task Force report.

There are also a number of colleges without any recognition from the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).  Seats will be re-allotted to the students from these colleges on ‘humanitarian grounds.’

“Affiliation will be cancelled from the academic year 2013-14 in regard to colleges that came under the second and third expert committees. There will be no renewal of affiliation for all those colleges which have been blacklisted, with immediate effect,” said BU Registrar (Evaluation) Somashekar.

BU Vice Chancellor, Thimme Gowda cleared the decks for 26 colleges (under category I and II of the Task Force report) that complied with the norms of affiliation.
“These colleges will soon get admission approval,” he said.