Nagpur: The Nagpur University (NU) has granted affiliation to 25 education colleges in contravention of rules prescribed by it for the Local Enquiry Committee (LEC) report, which is prepared as per National Council of Teachers Education (NCTE), and Nagpur bench of Bombay high court orders.The colleges lack the mandatory National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) rating, and yet have been granted affiliation. NAAC or Quality Control of India (QCI) rating was made mandatory in the pro forma of evaluation report carrying 200 marks from this year.As per the norms notified on April 13, NU had divided the assessment under various parameters, like human resource, infrastructure, library, equipment etc. Each of these groups has been assigned certain marks and colleges need to score some minimum points. Surprisingly, NU left the mark/points column vacant in its April 13 norms, which were revised following resistance from errant colleges. Now, it has been revealed that the move was deliberate to help colleges pass LEC inspections and get affiliation.Vice chancellor SP Kane said all education colleges would have closed if LEC committees had considered NAAC status in evaluation report. Asked why the condition not removed when the norms were revised, Kane said “There are technical issues. If it was scrapped then no college would ever invite NAAC team.”Sources said NAAC status is mandated by NCTE’s 2014 norms and HC order of August 2017 too is binding on NU.NU has forwarded a list of 34 education colleges to directorate of higher education (DHE), Pune. The online form filling for Centralized Admission Process (CAP) for BEd conducted by DHE through state CET cell would start from Thursday. Total 110 BEd colleges across the state are now out of CAP this year.Only seven of the 34 colleges fulfil the necessary condition of NAAC rating. The list counts NU’s SK Wankhede College of Education as three separate institutes which meet the requirement. One government college at Bhandara, two aided at Gondia and Wardha, and only three private colleges have NAAC accreditation.After much delay, the LEC inspections followed by vice chancellor’s decision on appeals was completed on July 9. NU had been struggling to comply with NCTE norms and HC orders while also make education colleges fall in line.In line with HC orders, the university had introduced stringent norms only to revise them within 17 days following backlash from colleges on April 13.

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