SILCHAR, Jan 22 � The 18th foundation day of the Assam University was celebrated on Friday.
The flag of the university was hoisted by vice chancellor Prof Tapodhir Bhattacharjee. The former executive director of the RBI, RB Barman was present as the chief guest in the function. In this connection, a press meet was organised on the premises of the university. Dr Niranjan Roy, director, Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) along with GP Pandey, dean, Information Sciences, Debabrata Deb, Registrar, Prof Gopalji Misra, Dean of Social Sciences and Dibakar Kanungo, financial officer, were present.
Prof Bhattacharya, expressed his confidence that the deficiencies pointed out in the assessment report of the NAAC awarding B grade to the university would be eliminated as the university would try to qualify for the top slot as a centre of excellence. Unfolding the future plans, he spoke about increasing the use of ICTs in teaching, learning and research, internationalisation of courses and programmes, diversification of courses and programmes, strengthening the campus networking and introduction of e-governance.
The university, in its short but eventful existence of 18 years, has at present 34 departments under nine schools of studies in the main campus and departments in the satellite campus at Diphu College. As many as 58 colleges � 45 general and 11 professional � affiliated to it are part of the sustained academic growth. He further said that the immediate task was to consolidate quality enhancement measures for the academic departments in conformity with the NAAC guidelines.
Among the measures initiated, as Dr Niranjan Roy pointed out, was the introduction of a choice-based credit system in the departments to provide mobility and integration of inter-disciplinary curricula, establishment of an industry interaction centre as a statutory body with structured consultancy, initiation of school system in the departments to encourage inter-disciplinary interaction in teaching and research and optimal utilisation of infrastructure, holistic development of capacity-built students, more career-oriented postgraduate programmes like Library and Information Science, Interior Decoration as well as Human Resource Development.
Also on the academic advancement arena, the priority was accorded on the setting up of a state-of-the-art centralised instrumentation centre to provide round-the-clock academic service to researchers and faculty members, curriculum development to utilise structural methodology of feedback received from stakeholders and involvement of industry-management experts in the boards of studies, student career guidance and counselling centre with trained psychologists and overall emphasis on quality sustenance and quality enhancement, Dr Roy said.
