By Suman Nandy, Founder, ePaathsala

 Accreditation is an assessment of quality of any higher education institutions. The Government has made it mandatory for eligible institutions to get accredited by NAAC or NBA in India to get certain benefit. In many other countries, the respective Governments has made it mandatory for higher education institutions to get accredited from the respective accreditation agencies. At the same time there are a number of non Government accreditation agencies worldwide for accreditation of higher education institutions in specific disciplines, for example, Business Management.

The direct outcome of the accreditation process is a grade, and a CGPA. For example, for NAAC accreditation, institutions get a grade ranging from C to A++. However, it may be noted that accreditation is more like a process than outcome, and accreditation brings a number of benefits to the institutions. A number of institutions affiliated by UGC 12B and 2(f) may get direct monetary assistance from RUSA in the tune of few crores in some states. Many other funding agencies also look for objective data for institutional funding, and may rely on the outcome of assessment as one of the parameters for funding the institutions. Many institutions in India has got temporary affiliation to the university which must be renewed every year. Many universities are contemplating accreditation for eligible institutions as one of the clauses for renewal of affiliation. The two most important parameters for any institutions, admission and placement, are also directly or indirectly affected by the accreditation outcome. Employers are relying on accreditation of the institution as a parameter to assess the quality of the students. For example, many employers have stated that they would only recruit students from institutions with a certain minimum grade. Similarly, students seeking admission may easily compare the quality of the institution based on the assessment outcome grade. The assessment reports are made publicly available, thereby helping students to take an informed decision. Accreditation also focuses on outcome based education ensuring that the students are competent on the intended outcome.

Assessment for accreditation is over multiple parameters. For example, both NAAC and NBA assess the institutions based on parameters such as curriculum development, quality of teaching learning, infrastructure support, quality of faculty including number of PhD faculties, faculty research, publications, patent, consultancy, Extension activities, Inter institutional linkages, student support, co-curricular and extra curricular activities by the students, scholarship, assistance for progression to higher education, governance, green initiatives etc. Recently NAAC has changed the framework of assessment and has made it more objective based on data. They have also released different framework of assessment based on the type of the institution thereby trying to reflect the quality of the institution in a more objective manner. The verification of validation of data submitted by the institutions are being performed by independent third party agencies under strict SOPs.

Students studying in institutions with higher accreditation grade also get direct and indirect benefits. While placement is a direct benefit, while they apply for higher education in foreign countries, many institutions favor students of higher accredited institutions. Moreover, accreditation focuses on implementation of policies, procedures and ICT framework as per global standards. So the institutions with higher accreditation have to put such policies, procedures and ICT framework in place and as a result, students from such institutions are more competent compared to the students of non accredited institutions or institutions with lower grade.

Accreditation brings in welcome changes towards improving the overall quality of teaching learning and ultimately benefits the students. Every institution, whether eligible or not, should embrace the accreditation framework for quality improvement and streamlining processes as per global standards. There are also a number of open source software available to help with the accreditation process.

About ePaathsala:

Epaathsala, (http://www.epaathsala.com/ a portfolio company of TLABS offering AI based Free and Open Source software for accreditation and campus automation that helps to collect data in basic format from all stakeholders and prepare all reports and supporting documents as per the latest format for NAAC, NBA and other accreditation.

 

They also help in conducting Academic and Administrative Audit, Green Audit, Quality audit.