Bamu’s action against some colleges raises serious question about academic audit

Aurangabad, July 26:

The action of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (BAMU) against some of the colleges raises serious questions over the inspection of academic audit and affiliation teams.

As per the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, an academic audit is mandatory for the colleges in Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed and Osmanabad districts after every three years to enhance administrative and academic quality. A total of 24 colleges were accorded grade-A in academic audit (AA) by the university recently.

Meanwhile, the administration launched an enquiry of 10 colleges recently. The teams visited the colleges and found a lack of required infrastructure and facilities colleges while a probe in the other five colleges is pending. Some of the colleges among them were accorded grade-A in the audit.

The action against the remaining five colleges raises a serious question about Bamu’s audit teams inspection and according to grade-A.

Commenting on this Senator Dr Govind Kale said that two months ago, Bamu which accorded grade-A to three colleges e issued probe orders recently.

“How can the university launch a probe when they have all infrastructure, laboratory and library, approved principal, sufficient classrooms and staff selected through a competent selection committee. The audit grade itself speaks about it,” he said.

Some of the college principals on the condition of anonymity told this that the decision to probe some colleges is contradictory to its own inspection report.

“The university inspects the college yearly while giving affiliation. Also, this time around, some colleges were given a grade- of A. This means the present probe is real and reports of audit and affiliation teams were bogus. Why did not the affiliation or audit team detected the shortcomings in the inspection,” they said.

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AA of 230 colleges carried out

The university carried out an academic audit (AA) of colleges within its jurisdiction first time and accorded their grade on the basis of an inspection of the experts' committee report. A total of four teams were formed. Each team comprises former vice-chancellors and subject experts.

The number of colleges audited and graded is as follows;

--There are 480 colleges for the academic year 2022-23

--401 colleges submitted a proposal for AA

--The AA of over 230 colleges completed

--24 colleges accorded grade-A

--Five grades A, B C, D and ‘no grade’

--45 college received no grade