The Accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) of the 162 years old Mumbai University may receive a hit for not having dedicated departments for Zoology , Botany and Microbiology . Mumbai University received 'A' grade in 2012. However, the NAAC grade of Mumbai University expired in 2017, and the varsity failed to apply for NAAC assessment.
Professor Ravindra Kulkarni, who is the Vice-Chancellor of the University has rejected all the claims of low NAAC accreditation for the university. He has said that these factors won't be an obstacle to retain the previous grades. He informed a department introduced in 2014, named Sindu Swadhyaya Sanstha conducts the M.Sc in Zoology ( Oceanography ) course in Mumbai University and its affiliated colleges. The department conducts courses in Integrated Aquatic Education fields.
Kulkarni added that as the Zoology and Botany courses are available in the regular MU affiliated colleges, and there is no necessity for MU to set up their dedicated departments in the university. The issue of not having these departments are 50 years old, and that did not affect the previous accreditations. Only a dedicated Life-Sciences department has been set up due to the increased politics in the MU campus. The department offers M.Sc in life sciences which are different from Basic Science subjects such as Botany, Zoology and Microbiology.
Mr. Kulkarni, informing that the NAAC Accreditation is on the final stage, has said that the university will be uploading the 5-years data and self-study reports on the university website to share it with NAAC. He expects that the accreditations will come within 2 to 3 months of data uploading.
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Surprisingly, new departments of Bio-Technology, Biophysics were opened in Mumbai University recently without any funds from the government. And despite receiving funds, the departments of Zoology, Microbiology and Botany could not be opened for a long period of time.
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The students who have enrolled for M.Sc Zoology (Oceanography) course under Sindhu Swadhyaya Sanstha will be the first batch to study Zoology in MU under the department.
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