Accreditation council for private universities

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A full fledged official accreditation mechanism for the private universities has become too pressing a necessity in the backdrop of the recent report of a committee of the University Grants Commission (UGC) on the state of these universities. The UGC committee report was a one-shot affair. It only shows up that there is a big need for a permanent mechanism to regularly monitor and report on the state of the private universities.
Indeed, the need for an accreditation council to watch over the affairs of the universities is acutely felt when many of the private universities are considered to be performing below the expected standard. The beneficial side to a formal and official accreditation council would be continuous pressure on the defaulting institutions to go all-out in their bid to improve standard or be recognised for what they are now and suffer the consequences of decline in enrolment of students.
However, the proposed accreditation council needs to be staffed by very scrupulous and non-partisan persons or ones with no links with vested interests that have cropped up in the sphere of higher private education.

Fahima Siddiqui
Uttara,
Dhaka