Anna University has asked all the colleges affiliated to it to conduct an academic audit, which the varsity will mandatorily review while granting the affiliation renewal to the colleges. The director of the Centre for Academic Studies of the university has issued a letter to the director of Centre for Affiliation of Institutions, Anna University to direct all the affiliated engineering colleges to conduct the academic audit to ensure that all internal assessments, assignments, industrial internship, laboratory assignments are being done by the students properly. The audit will also include the attendance record of the students. The academic audit for every course taught during each of the semesters should be conducted, stated a report by The New Indian Express.
The colleges are required to maintain records of the internal assessment results of each student. The colleges also need to document the project submitted by the students and the industrial internship they have pursued. According to varsity officials, the colleges have been directed to conduct academic audits to ensure the quality of teaching in the institutions. “The academic audit report will provide a complete overview of the academic activities going on in the college. If any college is showing leniency in laboratory assignments or in the marking of the internal assessments, then we can immediately identify it. The auditing will help in improving the quality of education in the colleges,” said an official of Anna University, as reported by The New Indian Express.
To ensure that the audit is carried out in the utmost transparent manner, the university has directed heads of the institutions to form specific committees, with an external course expert as one of the members, to conduct academic audits for every semester. This external course expert can be from a technical institution of repute located near the college. The varsity has also warned the colleges that during the inspection carried out for granting affiliation, the academic audit of both current and previous semesters will be verified. So the colleges need to keep all the reports prepared. Even the colleges granted permanent affiliation by the university will also have to conduct the academic audit, said the varsity officials.
However, teachers in private engineering colleges are worried as this audit report will add to the burden. “The colleges will ask the respective department teachers to prepare the audit report and it will be reviewed by an external also. We are already getting meagre pay for teaching the students and now we have to do this additional file work also,” said a faculty member working in a private engineering college in Chennai.
Courtesy : Edex