NAAC Assessing System

NAAC Assessing System
Source: Indian Express
GS II: Policies and Developmental Studies

What is discussed under NAAC Assessing System?

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), has sparked controversy by changing the grades of Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda from A to A+.
NAAC carries out quality checks or assessments of Indian Higher-level Educational Institutions (HEIs).

As part of accreditation, the NAAC, an autonomous agency within the University Grants Commission (UGC), analyses and certifies HEIs with gradings.
A higher education institution learns if it fulfils the evaluator’s quality requirements in terms of curriculum, faculty, facilities, research, and other factors through a multi-layered procedure.
Institutional grades range from A++ to C.

Accreditation Eligibility and Process

Only higher education institutions that are at least six years old or have graduated at least two batches of students are eligible to apply.
Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash
The accreditation is valid for a period of five years.
Aspiring institutes must be UGC-approved and have regular students engaged in full-time teaching and research programmes.
NAAC mainly depends on applicant institutions’ self-assessment reports.
The first phase requires an applicant institution to submit a self-study report with quantitative and qualitative indicators.
NAAC expert teams then evaluate the data, followed by peer team visits to the universities.

The All India Survey on Higher Education webpage lists 1,043 universities and 42,343 institutions.
According to the most recent data from June 21, there were 406 NAAC-accredited institutions and 8,686 colleges.
Maharashtra has the most authorised institutions among the states, with 1,869 – more than twice as many as Karnataka, which has 914.
With 43 accredited universities, Tamil Nadu has the most.

The fear of receiving a low grade or receiving no accreditation at all prevents higher education schools from freely requesting the review.
This is despite the fact that the UGC (Mandatory Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2012 made accreditation mandatory.
NAAC investigated the feasibility of a new system of Provisional Accreditation for Colleges (PAC) earlier this year, under which even one-year-old colleges might seek for accreditation.
It advised that the provisional credentials be valid for two years.
However, the group that drafted the white paper, which also went through numerous rounds of changes, recognised that such a system can lead to quality compromise.
The PAC plan suggests decreasing requirements in order to allow more universities to get Provisional Accreditation.
Instead, NAAC would be better to assist institutions in improving the quality of education they deliver, so that they can satisfy the requirements required for NAAC certification.

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