The Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS) has suffered a setback following a decision by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to put on hold the accreditation of the university.
The decision taken at a meeting of the National Agricultural Education Accreditation Board (NAEAB) of the ICAR held on October 26 decided to withhold the accreditation on governance, administrative, and academic grounds.
A peer review team appointed by the ICAR had highlighted certain issues and concerns, including duality in academic programmes of ICAR and UGC streams, deviations from the ICAR model Act, utilisation of ICAR grants for non-agricultural courses, and appointment of faculty.
Two months’ time
The university has been given two months to submit a satisfactory compliance report for consideration of its accreditation. Sources said the decision would cut off grants from the ICAR, leading to a crisis.
The peer review team has observed that the duality in academic programmes had created governance issues. KUFOS offers ICAR-approved programmes in Fisheries Science (BFSc, MFc and PhD) and MSc courses in Ocean Studies and Business Management in the UGC stream.
Out of the five faculties, only the Fisheries faculty offer academic programmes prescribed by the ICAR Deans Committee while the other four faculties offer courses in the UGC stream.
The NAEAB meeting observed that granting accreditation to KUFOS based on consideration of only the Fisheries faculty would not be feasible as per ICAR norms.
Deviations from ICAR Act
The board also noted that the statutory bodies of Senate, school governing councils, department governing councils, and Board of Studies of each department and the statutory posts of Pro Vice Chancellor and Director for each school in the university Act were not in compliance with the ICAR model Act while the extension council and regular Dean had not been included in the university Act.
According to the minutes of the meeting, the position of the Dean as the chairman of the faculty and not a salaried officer of the university made it difficult to carry out quality academic programmes. Most of the statutory posts in the university had not been filled and only one out of the seven directors of schools was in place.
Utilisation of grants
The peer review team had objected to the utilisation of ICAR grants for all courses, including those under the UGC stream. It recommended amendments to the university Act and statues for the creation of regular posts of Deans and other statutory bodies.
The need for timely completion of the academic programme was also highlighted.
