Naac team to visit varsity

TT, Siliguri, Oct. 3: The National Assessment and Accreditation Council ( Naac) has informed the North BengalUniversity that it will conduct a three-day inspection of the varsity from November 21 for its re-accreditation.

An NBU official said the university had received a letter on Friday, saying a Naac team of seven-nine members would visit the main campus in Siliguri and the second one in Jalpaiguri that had started functioning three years back.

He said the visit would be for three days from November 21.

Naac is a Bangalore-based autonomous body set up by the UGC in 1994 to assess and accredit higher education institutions across India.

Under the current system, institutions are graded under A, B, C and D categories, which mean very good, good, satisfactory and unsatisfactory, respectively.

Naac had last accredited the NBU in 2006 and accorded it B++ grade. As the grades are valid for a period of five years, an educational institution has to apply for re-accreditation after that.

NBU officials said they had missed a cycle of Naac accreditation for different reasons.

"Five years ago, the varsity was going through a transitional phase with the state government formulating new policies for universities. There wasn't a full-term vice-chancellor at NBU until two years back. So, we failed to apply for accreditation in 2011. Once the varsity got a full-term vice-chancellor, the process of getting the Naac accreditation started," a varsity official said.