subject: 3 Colleges Have Prospective For Excellence [print this page] The Goa University has recommended three colleges from the state to the University Grants Commission (UGC) for the purpose of upgrading them to the status of 'colleges with potential for excellence'.
These institutions include Smt Parvatibai Chowgule college of arts and science, Margao, Dnyanprassarak Mandal's college of arts, science, commerce, management Studies and technology, Mapusa, and Dhempe college of arts and science, Miramar. These colleges had forwarded proposals to the Goa University in July this year seeking the status of 'colleges with potential for excellence' under a UGC scheme.
"Proposals by the three institutions were examined by a committee formed by the university. They were found fit and all three have been forwarded last week to the UGC for its consideration," Goa University registrar M M Sangodkar told TOI. The last date for submission of the proposals was September 30.
In July this year, the UGC had issued a circular to all recognized universities across the country informing them of the Colleges with potential for excellence ( CPE) scheme, introduced during the UGC's X plan period "to identify colleges which are doing good work and have the potential to do excellent work in teaching and research, and award them the CPE status".
Accordingly, the Goa University invited proposals from its affiliate colleges to which three colleges from the state responded. As per the UGC's requirements, the university constituted a committee consisting of the vice-chancellor, registrar/dean of the college development council and an expert from outside the state to check data and information provided by the colleges.
After verifying whether the claims made by the colleges were correct, the committee also allotted scores, as per UGC guidelines, for specific parameters as per the scoring scale, and arrived at a total score obtained by each of the colleges.
Incidentally, each college which is awarded the CPE status is eligible for financial assistance ranging from Rs 35 lakh to Rs 100 lakh. At the second level of selection, a standing committee on CPE is constituted by the UGC to process proposals received from colleges. The committee approves a scoring scale based on 48 parameters to evaluate the proposals of the colleges. The final nod comes from the UGC at its meeting based on the standing committee's recommendations.
Since the introduction of the scheme by the UGC in 2004-05, only St Xavier's college in Mapusa had forwarded its proposal for CPE status which was subsequently approved by the UGC, said a source from Goa University.
"A college with potential for excellence gets the opportunity to enhance the quality of the learning and teaching process at the undergraduate and postgraduate level with the help of a flexible credit-based modular system, and a whole range of innovations currently accepted across the world," explained R V Gaonkar, principal of Chowgule college.
