NAAC’s Accreditation Process Now in Binary Terms

India is one of the most diverse countries in the world and it has one of the largest and most diverse education systems in the world.

In the last few years because of privatization in the sector, the emergence of new programs has improved the quality of higher education in the country. This has however, also raised a question about the quality and relevance of the higher education provided.

The National Association and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is an autonomous institution of the UGC. It mandates quality education in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

Recently, NAAC announced that its accreditation process will only be in binary terms, that is, only two terms will be used for educational institutions. They will either be already accredited or yet to acquire the title.

Dr. Bhushan Patwardhan, Chairperson of NAAC says, “The idea is to eradicate the fear associated with the NAAC accreditation process. And to make it more of a facilitator for all educational institutions to thrive for excellence.”

He added that the new accreditation process has new parameters for colleges and universities that are offering a different nature of courses.

In addition, individual programs run by a college or an individual department will also have the opportunity to apply for NAAC accreditation.

Chandrakant Patil is the minister of higher and technical education in Maharashtra. He says, “We have 4494 colleges and 65 universities, out of which, 1854 are NAAC accredited. Out of 1177 aided institutions, 1096 are NAAC accredited. But out of 2141 non-aided educational institutions, 1909 institutions have not completed their accreditation process.”

He adds that this is a very big concern for them. The intention of this new policy was to encourage the accreditation process among colleges and universities for a better quality of higher education.