No More Grades, Colleges And Universities To Get Binary, Multi-Level Accreditation

NAAC Introduces Binary Accreditation For Higher Education: The Executive Committee of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in a council meeting held on Saturday 27 Jan 2024 announced “Higher education Institutions (HEIs) in India will no longer be graded during the accreditation process.”

The process of accrediting Indian higher education institutions will now be simpler. Instead of giving them grades, institutions will be classified as either “accredited” or “not accredited.”

The reforms will be introduced based on the recommendations of a broad committee, which was constituted by the government in November 2022 and headed by K. Radhakrishnan, former chairman of ISRO and chairperson of the standing committee of IIT Council.

The NAAC presented its final report to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Jan 16 after a public consultation process, and the report has been accepted by the Minister.

Major Reforms In Accreditation For Higher Education

The committee has recommended a series of significant changes to improve the periodic approval, assessment, accreditation, and ranking of Indian HEIs. Additionally, the recommendation focuses on introducing mentoring and incentivizing schemes to enhance their participation and accreditation levels.

As per the statement, the NAAC has decided to implement the reforms in two phases. The first phase will involve binary accreditation, which will be completed within the next four months. The second phase will be maturity-based graded levels, which will be implemented by December 2024.

The binary accredited aim is to encourage all institutions to participate in the accreditation process, thereby cultivating a culture of quality in higher education in India.

According to the “Maturity-Based Graded Accreditation” policy, the NAAC will encourage accredited institutions to aim for the highest level of 5, which is “Institutions of Global Excellence for Multi-Disciplinary Research and Education”.

NAAC has announced that it will implement a new process that takes into account the different types of Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in the country. The process will categorize HEIs based on their orientation/vision and heritage/legacy.

The accreditation agency will focus on mentoring and handholding for rural and remote location institutions.

Additionally, the NAAC will introduce a new “One Nation One Data Platform” to ensure integrity and transparency in handling institutional data collected for various purposes such as approval, accreditation, and ranking. The platform will have an in-built design for collateral cross-checking of the authenticity of data.

The new system will be based on trust and data-driven, with minimal visits to an institution for verification. However, giving wrong submissions will carry heavy penalties. Furthermore, there will be provision for customized ranking based on stakeholders such as industry, funding agencies, students, etc.

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