The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) will introduce a new accreditation system for colleges and universities nationwide in September this year. This binary accreditation framework differs from the current accreditation system.
Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman of the NAAC executive committee, made this announcement during a regional consultative workshop on binary accreditation, held for the eastern region at the Utkal University.
To enhance the quality of education significantly, the Radhakrishnan Committee on transformative reforms in accreditation, approved by the Ministry of Education, has proposed several key recommendations. Among these is the binary accreditation framework, Sahasrabudhe added.
“During the last decade, we have been using the same grading system for the accreditation of colleges and universities. Institutions receive grades as per the existing system that range from C to A++. We found that many institutions are not taking part in the accreditation process for fear that they may not get a good grade,” said Sahasrabudhe.
He observed that the country has approximately 1,200 universities, and around 65 percent of them refrain from participating in the accreditation system out of fear. The chairman stated that their objective is for every higher education institution to be included in the accreditation process. He also noted that, under the new accreditation system, peer teams will not conduct physical visits to the institutions as part of the assessment.
Official sources indicate that the new framework is expected to have a shorter cycle time and a reduced accreditation fee. Peer institutions will handle data validation, which is primarily quantitative, to ensure the assessment’s objectivity and accuracy. The proposed framework includes 10 attributes with 59 metrics for universities, 56 for autonomous colleges, and 46 for affiliated colleges.
NAAC is currently hosting five regional workshops across the country to collect nationwide feedback from universities and colleges on the binary accreditation manual prior to its official release. The regional consultative workshop for the eastern region, held in Bhubaneswar, was one of these events. Approximately 500 participants, including 17 vice-chancellors, academic heads, and quality assurance cell coordinators from institutions in eastern states such as Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and West Bengal, attended the workshop.
