Salient points of White Paper on “Re-imaging Assessment and Accreditation in Higher Education in India”

A draft on above topic was reviewed and endorsed by the Academic Advisory Committee and the Executive Committee of the NAAC. The committee has suggested a number of modifications in the process of Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in India. A number of reviewers and authors were involved in preparing the document; and finally reviewed by a three-member committee comprising of Dr. K. Kasturirangan, Dr. Anil Kakodkar and Prof. Jagadesh Kumar.  

 Following are important points (observation) reported in the document:

1.    System of Assessment and Accreditation (SAA) must be aligned to the NEP 2020 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, especially SDG 4 for education. So, the changes are suggested to align with objectives of NEP 2020 and SDG4.

2.    Multiple-Accreditation-Agencies model needs to be developed carefully so as to meet growing needs. Allowing a greater number of agencies assisting NAAC, has been suggested.

3.    Only BINARY accreditation (accredited, not-accredited) for institutions and grading for their programs has been recommended.

4.    The paper talks about different dimensions of well-being, namely, Physical, Biological, Pragmatic, Economic, Societal, Emotional, Intellectual, Ethical, Aesthetic and Spiritual through sustainable quality education.

5.    In a statement of the document, the committee opines: “NBA does not cover all programs, which is one of the major shortcomings that need to be addressed on priority. It is prudent to bring both HEI-level and program-level accreditation under a single umbrella”.

6.    To achieve “single umbrella” concept, implementation of regulation (constituted by UGC as Accreditation Advisory Council (AAC), 2019), is awaited.

7.    In another important suggestion, the reviewers have mentioned “10% of the total marks of assessment to be devoted to a set of important learning outcomes that come under Higher-Order Cognition (an ability or set of abilities)”. For this, AAC/SAA should conduct a National Test for students from institutions approaching accreditation stage (may be as part of the student survey). If found successful, then 10% be increased to 20%, and then gradually to 40%, with the corresponding strengthening of the online education program.

8.    The 7 criteria of NAAC have been revisited, modified and suggested as: (i) educatedness, professional skill, career progression and alumni feedback; (ii) autonomy for practitioners; (iii) quality of teaching, learning and assessment; (iv) quality of research and innovation; (v) commitment of SDGs (local, global); (vi) diversity and inclusiveness; and (vii) infrastructure support, intuitional progress and development plan.

9.    Focus of the criteria suggested for assessment is on General educatedness, Skills/abilities for specialized education, Contribution to research/innovation.

10. Assessing and accrediting such a huge number of HEIs cannot be handled by a single agency such as NAAC and therefore multiple bodies of assessment & accreditation of the educational system would have to evolve and get engaged in the task over time.