Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav Wednesday requested union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani to set up a regional office of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in the state without delay so that educational institutes can be evaluated and their quality standards improved.
In the letter to Irani, the chief minister has pointed out that evaluation of educational institutions in the state was tardy as the NAAC headquarters was in Bengaluru.
Due to this, it was not possible to ensure the adherence to the national level standards set up by the NAAC by the state's educational institutes, which were coming up in a big way given the quick progress and expansion in higher education, he said.
At present, there were 4,250 government/non-government/financially aided and private higher education institutes in the state, while so far only 380 (3 state universities, 29 government degree colleges, 105 non-government-aided degree colleges and 243 self-financed) educational institutes have been evaluated by the NAAC while many others are under consideration.
The chief minister also underlined that getting the higher education institutes in the state evaluated by the NAAC was a priority for the state government and added that this should work should be carried out at the earliest.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has set up the NAAC for assessment and evaluation of quality in higher education sector.