New Reforms in NAAC Accreditation Process announced

[Note: This is a Special Edition of Campus Weekly. Due to importance of this news for all our readers, we are publishing two editions this week.]

In its latest move, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has initiated extensive changes in the accreditation process, introducing Binary Accreditation and Maturity-Based Graded Accreditation for Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in the country.

"There will be Binary Accreditation (either accredited or not accredited) rather than grades to encourage all the institutions to get on-boarded in the accreditation process thereby creating a quality culture in the higher education system," a senior Ministry of Education (MoE) official said.

Dr. Radhakrishnan Koppillil , Former Chairman of ISRO and Chairperson of the Standing Committee IIT Council, leads the Ministry of Education Committee recommending substantial reforms.

Campus Notes: Who is Dr K Radhakrishnan? He is an Indian space scientist who headed the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) [Nov 2009- Dec 2014] as Chairman of Space Commission, Secretary of the Department of Space and Chairman of ISRO.

Under his leadership of ISRO, India became the first country to reach Mars in its first attempt. His educational journey started with his BE from Government Engineering College, Thrissur followed by MBA from IIM Bangalore and then he went on to finish his PhD from IIT Kharagpur.

What are the 2 accreditation methodologies?

A)Binary Accreditation: Regarding binary accreditation, the Council will declare whether an HEI is accredited or unaccredited without assigning a score and grade, a departure from the current practice.

B) Maturity-Based Graded Accreditation: Under this, HEIs will be classified under levelled accreditation from Level 1 to 5. This, as per NAAC, aims to motivate accredited institutions to elevate their standards from ‘Level 1’ to ‘Level 4’ as Institutions of National Excellence, and subsequently to ‘Level-5,’ i.e., Institutions of Global Excellence for Multi-Disciplinary Research and Education.

Bhushan Patwardhan, chairman of the NAAC’s executive committee, said the new system, which will reflect the variation in quality among programmes and departments within an institution, will be in keeping with global practices and the National Education Policy’s recommendations.

“This is expected to promote healthy competition within and outside the institution, providing an incentive to improve quality.”

However, the NAAC will be ready to accredit — with scores and grades — the college or university’s individual departments or courses, if the institution asks it to.

Vision behind these reforms:

These reforms, endorsed by the Ministry of Education Committee under Dr. K Radhakrishnan's leadership, prioritize evaluating processes, outcomes, and impact across various attributes of HEIs rather than a solely input-centric approach.

Additionally, a One Nation One Data Platform is proposed to ensure the integrity and transparency of managing institutional data.

Important Timelines:

The reforms will be rolled out in two stages, with Binary accreditation taking effect in the next four months. Following this period, no new applications will be accepted under the current methodology.

Institutions that have already applied or will apply within the next four months will have the choice to follow either the existing process or the new methodology of binary accreditation. The Maturity-based Graded levels are slated for implementation by December 2024.

Our Take:

upGrad Campus welcomes this new move of NAAC and advocates that there should be substantial focus on the student centric ecosystem in the HEIs along with key focus in the research and tech infrastructure to boost the learner engagement as well as learning in the institution.

NAAC Ratings have been the catalyst in motivation of various HEIs across the nation for them to focus on their research methodology, Faculty Development, Tech Innovation and Curriculum Development.

With these reforms, HEIs will pave a new path for excellence and towards industry-ready Campuses!

[Hi Readers, we have an important announcement.

Our flagship product, Lecture Capture System aka LCS has helped more than 300+ Campuses in India in last decade by providing them Tech-Enabled Classrooms with our SaaS Platform and unique Hardware Mix.

This key investment in the Tech Infrastructure has helped them in their student’s learning journey and overall institutional development.

To know more about LCS: Drop us a "Hi" on WhatsApp or visit our Website.]