Blame it on communication gap between univ and colleges, lack of industry-oriented courses, faculty posts on contract basis
PANAJI
Despite being equipped with infrastructure, human resources and manpower, the ranking of the lone university in Goa has been witnessing a dip. In the current year’s (2024) National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Union Education Ministry in the general category for all universities in India, the Goa University (GU) rank has slipped down to the 151-200 band while in previous years GU had featured in the 101-150 band during 2022 and 2023 NIRF.
Questioning this drop, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant expressed surprise that despite providing significant infrastructure and resources, how GU can display such a dip. GU has fallen short in the NIRF 2024 failing to secure a place in the top 100 for the third consecutive year. GU, which fell from the top 100 in 2021 to the 101-200 band in 2022, retained the position in 2023 before slipping further into one of the lowest rank-band this year.
However, educationists and academicians have different opinions for the fall, and some even came out with valid suggestions to restore the earlier track record of GU.
“I can't agree that standard of our university has come down due to ranking of NAAC. In fact, our university was expecting a higher ranking then last time CGPA of 3.09 because it has filled the gaps of last time, like filling of vacancies of staff, and there were more research projects than earlier etc,” stated Prof Uday Ballikar, retired principal of Shree Damodar Higher Secondary School of Science, Margao.
“May be the university failed to report properly. Good standard of our university is in the interest of Goans. Let us not criticise the University but encourage it to raise the standard. NAAC is impartial. But grading does depend on how appropriately you report,” said Prof Ballikar, who has been the first chairperson of Goa State Commission for Children.
“Whatever may be said about the fall in ranking of the Goa University, the Chief Minister of Goa should not have used the inaugural program of GURU (Goa University Research Park Unit) to reprimand them. If the CM is serious, he should call a special meeting of university core stakeholders and demand a road map to improve the score,” opined educationist Prabhakar Timble.
Timble, also the former State Election Commissioner added, "The decline is due to reduced scores in the three key parameters namely Teaching & Resources; Research & professional practices; Graduation outcomes. The university also has low scores in supplementary parameters such as Outreach and Perception Management."
Suggesting measures to combat the fall, Timble advised, “The university should work with a pre-designed roadmap for sponsored projects, consultancy assignments and faculty research papers in indexed journals. The university must work as one unit and not like independent kingdoms.”
According to academicians, an overall communication gap is found between schools, higher secondary schools, and colleges or universities. GU’s lack of interest in introducing new courses as per the industry demand and allotting more importance to pure sciences rather than the industry demanded courses may have led to this drop in the ranking, some of them feel.
Some come out with examples like, lack of aviation related courses, environmental related courses, and courses associated with auto industry. “An initiative from Goa Board and Goa University would be a welcome step to understand each one’s working. The discussion over the need of new courses, conducting seminars on education related matters not only for accreditation of colleges but for the community can upgrade the rank,” stated a senior official from education department.
Commenting on the factors that resulted in the drop in GU ranking, Pandurang Nadkarni, former chairman, Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education mentioned that ranking depends upon various parameters as predetermined by the respective agency. Infrastructure, Appointments of faculties, Research by the faculties, Research by various departments of the University, Documentation, Quality of results of the students passing from the University, etc."It is difficult to give observations unless the report is made available.”
He added, “As per reliable information there are at least 25% of the various posts in the university on contract basis and if this is true, then the teaching-learning processes will be affected and in turn quality of students' performance could also be affected. This will have adverse effect on the ranking. Timely funding by the government is very essential. Normally, the fund transfer by the government is at the close of the financial year which puts restrictions on utilisation of the funds by the university.”
