Accreditation of Institutions

The Government has undertaken a collaborative, multi-stakeholder and multi-pronged consultation process for formulating the New Education Policy (NEP), which included online, grassroots and national level thematic deliberations on the 33 identified themes. Out of these 33 themes, one of the themes under School Education is “Schools standards, School assessment and School Management systems’ wherein the discussion note states that there is a need to put in place a School Quality Assessment and Accreditation System to cover all aspects of school functioning, including scholastic and co-scholastic domains, physical infrastructure, faculty management, school leadership, learning outcomes and satisfaction of pupils and their parents/ guardians. Similarly, under Higher Education, the theme “Ranking of institutions and accreditations” underlines the concern on the poor performance of our Universities in World Ranking and Global ratings.

As per the University Grants Commission (UGC) (Mandatory Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2012, notified on 19th January, 2013, it is mandatory for each Higher Educational Institution to get accredited by an Accreditation Agency after passing out of two batches or six years, whichever is earlier, in accordance with the norms and methodology prescribed by such agency or the Commission, as the case may be. Further, every Higher Educational Institution, which has completed six years of existence or two batches having passed out, whichever is earlier, is to apply within six months from the date of coming into force of these Regulations, to the Accreditation Agency, for accreditation. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has notified similar regulations on 29th January, 2014.

According to the Regulations, the process of accreditation has been laid down for achieving the objectives of advancing academic quality; enabling students and other stakeholders to make informed choices with regard to Higher educational institutions; to facilitate Higher Educational Institutions to augment quality, by bench-marking uniform reference points pertaining to academic standards; to facilitate Higher Educational Institutions to acquire international recognition, cross-border and trans-national collaborations, etc.

The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) is already conducting accreditation of technical programmes being offered by technical institutions whereas National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) does the institutional accreditation.

Apart from making assessment and accreditation mandatory for higher educational institutions, the UGC has already laid down minimum standards of instruction for the grant of first degree, Master’s degree and M.Phil/Ph.D degree. The UGC has also laid down minimum qualifications for the appointment of teachers and academic staff in Universities and Colleges. The UGC has further laid down the UGC (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2010 and UGC(Maintenance of Standards in Private Universities) Regulations, 2003 for maintaining standards in Deemed to be Universities and Private Universities respectively.

Since the New Education Policy is still being evolved, conclusions would have to await its finalization.

This information was given by the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani yesterday in a written reply to the Lok Sabha question.

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