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Besu cries foul over World Bank report
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News Byte on 24 February, 2008 07:14:00
 
HOWRAH Feb. 24: The recent assessment report of the 11 institutes implementing
World Bank sponsored Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP)
has been questioned by Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu) after
being relegated to the fourth position.
Besu managed to score a mere 843 out of 950 points despite scoring well in
almost all spheres. The institute lagged behind in the ‘status of
accreditation of courses’, scoring ‘0’ out of 100 points.
While TEQIP's assessment was on, Besu’s accreditation awarded by National
Board of Accreditation (NBA) was already over. Surprisingly, in a similar
assessment conducted in September, Besu was allotted 64 marks out of 100 under
this sphere. “If the institute managed to grab points without
accreditation in September, why were points denied in December?”
questioned a university teacher. Doubts were raised as to how Jadavpur
University managed a first position among 11 institutes when it's accreditation
too had expired and the university was offered a year's extension, which is
usual for any NAAC accredited institute.
“Moreover, NBA is entirely a technological assessment body while NAAC is
a qualitative assessment body of the university. Though TEQIP is aimed at
improving infrastructure and research standards of technology departments, the
assessment report did not reflect the kind of assessment that had been
done,” said another teacher.
Besu scored over other institutes including JU, in four major factors namely,
expenditure on networking, expenditure on services to community, expenditure on
staff development plan and expenditure on other heads.
Apart from accreditation, the institute has earned rosy points in almost all
other factors. Mr Partha Pratim Chattopadhyay, secretary, Bengal Engineering and
Science University Teachers’ Association, said, “The implementation
of the NBA’s recommendations was time-consuming and this delay has cost us
the first position in the assessment report.”