NEW DELHI: Proposing a whole overhauling of the present system, the Overarching Committee on evaluation and accreditation of higher education establishments (HEIs), urged a more simplified “Accredited, Awaiting Accreditation and Not Accredited” system, as a substitute of the current 8-level grading system of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).
Other proposals embrace decreasing the periodicity for re-accreditation to a few years and categorising HEIs into two teams based mostly on orientation and imaginative and prescient, and heritage and legacy. NAAC’s accreditation course of has been beneath the scanner just lately over critical allegations in opposition to the functioning of the Council and malpractices within the grading course of.
The ministry of education in November 2022 constituted the committee headed by Dr Ok Radhakrishnan, chairperson, the Standing Committee of IIT Council.
The draft report “Transformative Reforms for Strengthening Periodic Assessment and Accreditation of All Higher Educational Institutions in India” was positioned in public area by the ministry on Friday, which urged that designing a ‘Unified Elicitation Tool’ to gather the superset of knowledge from HEIs for the numerous functions (of approval, accreditation, scoring/rating) with single level knowledge entry by HEIs with provision for yearly updates for the accreditation/ evaluation and rankings of the HEIs. It additionally urged “significant penalty for wrong submissions” and “ensure public disclosure of relevant data by HEIs, to enhance the overall process-credibility.”
The committee noticed that beneath the present system of accreditation, “The low level of willingness of HEIs to volunteer for this process continues to be a cause of concern,” because it additionally added that the plurality of all-encompassing info (a lot of which will not be fully relevant for numerous classes of HEIs), in addition to the cumbersome and tiresome course of “are concerns on subjectivity in the processes, and inconsistencies between assessment by different agencies.”
The committee said that the urged reforms are proposed with a strategic intent i.e.: “Consistent with the Vision of NEP 2020, adopt, right away, a simple, trust-based, credible, objective and rationalised system for approval, accreditation and ranking of HEIs…” While suggesting inclusion of all HEIs and each programme within the newly proposed evaluation and accreditation system, given the heterogeneity of HEIs within the nation, report proposed “categorise them based on their orientation/ vision and heritage/ legacy, and then seek information from the HEIs that are appropriate to their category (rather than a one-size-fits-all model in vogue currently).”
Categorising based mostly on orientation and imaginative and prescient, HEIs are to be labeled as multi-disciplinary education and analysis intensive, analysis intensive, educating intensive, specialised streams, vocational and talent intensive, and neighborhood engagement and repair.
Moreover, outdated and established establishments are to be positioned beneath heritage standards and new and upcoming HEIs as legacy establishments. Suggesting shifting out of the present enter centric course of throughout accreditation, the committee urged “Accredit with due consideration for Inputs, Processes, Outcomes and Impact across different attributes of HEI.”
Picking up from the National Education Policy 2020’s Binary Accreditation (Accredited and Not Accredited), the committee urged Adapted Binary Accreditation the place establishments shall be categorised as “Accredited,” “Awaiting Accreditation (on the threshold for Accreditation),” and “Not Accredited (far below the standards for accreditation).”