The issue of quality has been the single biggest problem plaguing our institutions. In a bid to improve the quality of learning outcomes of higher educational institutions, recently a series of NAAC Awareness Workshops on assessment and accreditation were conducted concurrently both in Jammu, and Kashmir divisions. This was in the backdrop of constitution of committees for NAAC accreditation under the chairmanship of Nodal Principals of two divisions.
These committees have the mandate to collate the data from the respective colleges, coordinate the NAAC inspection and accreditation process. This exercise is the first of its kind towards the effective implementation of National Education Policy-2020 and an important milestone to see that most of the colleges in J&K are NAAC-accredited. At present only 32% of colleges in J&K have got NAAC accreditation and most of them have fared poorly in the grading.
The Secretary Higher Education, Ms. Sushma Chauhan (IAS) has been constantly monitoring these workshops and interacting with the faculty and resource persons. She has emphasized on the fruitful results of these workshops and anticipated that through this process, the College in J&K shall go for NAAC Accreditation that will make them eligible for various grants which can strengthen the infrastructure and academics of the institutions.
India has the third largest higher education system in the world next to the United States and China. Its higher education is as diverse as its geography, which is extremely complex, dynamic and heterogeneous. During the last few decades there has been an exponential increase in the number of higher educational institutions across the country and at present it has approximately 1,000 universities, 40,000 colleges and 10,000 stand-alone institutions. Going back to 80s and 90s when this growth was in progress, it was felt that there is a premium on both quantity (increased access) and quality (relevance/ excellence) but the quality was not given due emphasis.
Accordingly, recommendations were laid down in the national policy on education-1986 and plan of action (POA)-1992 to create an independent national accreditation body and thus National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) came into existence in 1994. The prime objective of NAAC is to assess and accredit institutions of higher learning with the objective of helping them to work continuously to improve the quality of education. With its headquarter at Bangaluru, NAAC is an autonomous body funded by UGC.
It functions through its General Council (GC), Executive Committee (EC) and a Director who is its academic and administrative head besides an advisory and consultative committee constituted from time to time.
The NAAC has formulated various stages in the process of assessment and accreditation. The institutions seeking assessment and accreditation have to register at the NAAC website and submit Institutional Information for Quality Assessment (IIQA), Self Study Report (SSR) and other supporting documents. A feedback from students called Student Satisfaction Survey (SSS) and Data Verification and Validation (DVV) takes place and on that basis Peer Team Visit (PTV) is being fixed by the NAAC which finally leads to Institutional grads and Reports.
Having said this, there are a plethora of issues ranging from infrastructural facilities, dearth of teaching/non-teaching staff and other academic matters which almost every institution is facing partly/wholly and because of these shortcomings, the colleges are usually reluctant to seek NAAC accreditation. As such, there is no magic wand to find solution to these issues instantly. The most effective way of solving the problems is improving the Governance, Leadership and Management (Criteria-6) of our institutions. This demands the selection of competent academic leaders through procedures as envisaged in UGC guidelines. Such academic leaders would exercise their writ and authority to pump blood into its every nook and corner of institutions for academic excellence and growth. At present the majority of the Principals running the academic institutions are incharge Principals and the only criterion to be incharge Principal is either one’s seniority or willingness to work as incharge Principal. This provokes dissatisfaction which leads to plummeting motivation that thwarts academic success of intuitions. We should do away with this adhocism and take necessary steps to refer the posts of Principals to state PSC. Importantly, we should create an independent body to exercise ‘Academic Audit’ for finding the factual state of affairs in the system. We are living in an era when higher education is undergoing a sea change. We need academic leaders who are researchers and innovators, who can turnaround things to introduce innovation and to improve upon the falling academic standards, organizational dysfunction and solve infrastructural problems.
Dr Muhmmad Amin Malik is az college principal GDC, Bandipora
In 2017 NAAC come out with a revised accreditation framework designed to promote transparency in the assessment process. Instead of on-site visit by a group of assessors, two stages of assessment were created. System Generated Scores (SGS) based on online evaluation (70%) and Peer evaluation (30%) based on on-site grading were created. The final result of the Assessment and Accreditation exercise is an ICT based score, which is the combination of evaluation of: Qualitative Metrics, Quantitative Metrics, Third Party Verification Report and PTV Score. The procedures adopted by the NAAC are in accordance with the internationally accepted norms. In fact NAAC has signed MoUs with many world accreditation agencies to share and promote good practices. This emphasizes that our accreditation system should not only meet global standards but must ensure that Indian institutions and their degrees are respected and accredited globally.
The vision, mission and core values are inspirational statements of any organization that convey its purpose, direction and underlying principles. NAAC has got a vision, mission and 5-core values which engender support in its strategic planning of assessment and accreditation of institutions. Its 5-core values focus on National Development, Fostering Global Competencies among Students, Inculcating a Value System among Students, Promoting Use of Technology and Quest for Excellence. It assesses the institution’s contributions towards these core values which have been put into 7- criterion viz, Curricular Aspects, Teaching-Learning and Evaluation, Research, Consultancy and Extension, Infrastructure and Learning Resources, Student Support and Progression Governance, Leadership and Management and Innovations and Best Practices. These parameters in SSR form the backbone of the entire NAAC process of assessment and accreditation and carry a weightage of 1000, the maximum weightage-350 being for Teaching-Learning and Evaluation (criteria-2). Though the scale of evaluation varies from College to University, NAAC has identified 32-key indicators (for Affiliated UG Colleges) distributed among 7-criteria in Quantitative (65.20%) and Qualitative (34.80%) Metrics. For a College the focus always remains on teaching, learning and evaluation whereas in University the main attraction is research and consultancy. Institutions going for NAAC inspection should carefully study all these parameters and create a functional IQAC and College website.
The quality status of an institute in Higher Education has been the prime concern of countries the world over. While the UGC has already made the NAAC accreditation mandatory for all recognized higher educational institutions in the country, the states like Andhra Pradesh have also made it mandatory with the Govt issuing orders last year instructing the colleges to get the accreditation within the next three years. The accreditation has become an integral part of the functioning of higher education in India as only NAAC-accredited institutions are eligible for UGC, RUSA grants and various other Govt schemes/projects. NAAC accreditation determines the quality of the institute in terms of education, infrastructure, research, teaching & learning etc and the funding agencies always look for objective data on the quality status of the institute. Institutions with top NAAC grades such as ‘A++’, ‘A+’ and ‘A’ are most sought-after, as they offer high-quality education. Furthermore, NAAC inspection makes an Institution to know its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities through an informed review process to identify and reinforce vulnerable areas. The recruiting agencies always look for reliable information on the quality of education offered to the prospective recruits. Above all, high graded NAAC accredited College can seek autonomous status for running various courses and starting innovative and modern methods of pedagogy.