Mumbai University is eager to increase the number of seats and its student capacity after receiving hundred’s of application regarding the same. More than 120 colleges want to start new streams or increase their capacity or start new programs. A total of 151 proposals have been received by the university with most of the colleges wanting to begin a new course in commerce, followed by colleges wanting to start a new course on management studies. Colleges also want to foray into the master’s program and offer post-graduate courses.
Many colleges however do not possess a NAAC grade or have just applied for it, the varsity declared. In some cases, the expert committee had refused to give a green signal to these colleges but upon calling the management for hearing, they received confirmation upon the same. Even though some of these colleges have submitted their SSR (Self-Study Report), rules laid down by the UGC state that no new program or divisions can be permitted, if the colleges don’t have a valid NAAC grade. Many of the colleges have protested that their NAAC verification’s got delayed due to the pandemic and the university should be considerate
Even though these colleges are hopeful that they will get their NAAC verification’s soon, experts show their concern for these application as the NEP 2020 has implied that no permission can be given to start colleges after 2020. All these cases are now being transferred to the state government for its final approval.
“The two years of the pandemic saw very slow growth. This year, there has been a good response from colleges that feel that the number of students seeking admission would rise We are aware that no new colleges have been given approval yet this year. But in our case, existing colleges are asking for additional intake. We will send these proposals to the
state and it will take the final call,” stated an university official.
Even though most of the requests made to the university have been to start new courses in the stream of commerce, for subjects like accounting, BMS and finance, many requests have also been made to increase the number of seats for 3 year and 5 year law and LLB programs.
The management council of MU has stated that it has given an emergency approval to seven colleges last year. All these colleges have been regularized.
Photo Credit: The Quint
