Six city colleges have been selected by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to mentor NAAC-aspirant colleges.
KC and HR colleges in Churchgate, KJ Somaiya in Vidyavihar, RJ College in Ghatkopar, Kandivali Education Society’s BK Shroff College and Birla College in Kalyan will share their expertise and resources with at least five institutions each and help them upgrade their performance under the UGC-sponsored Paramarsh Scheme.

The mentor institutions will facilitate, guide and support institutions which have failed to meet NAAC’s quality standards to enhance the quality of teaching and learning process, research, and so on, said Naresh Chandra, director of Birla College. He further said there are many new institutions in the Kalyan-Dombivli belt which may need support from colleges with better NAAC ratings.

“We can invite guest faculty, resource persons and conduct training for the mentee institutions with help from the UGC,” he added. Birla College will support seven institutions under the scheme.

The mentor institutions had to write to the colleges to seek consent from them, said Hemlata Bagla, principal of KC College. These names were then sent to the UGC along with their application. KC is likely to mentor five to six colleges. The UGC has selected 167 institutions in all for the Paramarsh Scheme.

The programme will work through a hub and spoke model, where the mentor institution will work as the hub and the services will be provided to mentee institutions for their overall development.
The mentor colleges are set to get a funding of up to Rs 30 lakh to carry out various activities to help mentee colleges upgrade their quality.
The idea is to get every college to attain NAAC accreditation with a minimum score of 2.5 out of 4 in the next few years.

In his first meeting with vice-chancellors from public universities across the state on Wednesday, the new governor and chancellor of universities, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, also emphasised the need to “hasten the process of accreditation”. The governor observed only 350 colleges in the state fall under the A-Grade category and there is a need for the numbers to rise. He said the government is promoting establishment of cluster universities and autonomous colleges.

Accreditation is a must for colleges to get autonomy and, therefore, is now significant to align with the draft National Education Policy, which proposes to scrap affiliation system altogether and allow colleges to be independent, said a vice-chancellor.