NAAC accreditation: Major reforms! Binary, multi-level method to replace gradation system

National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has announced some major reforms in the accreditation of Higher Educational Institutes of the country based on the report of Radhakrishnan committee. According to a release, the reforms in the accreditation process will strengthen the periodic approval, assessment and accreditation and ranking of all Higher Educational Institutions of the country and have been considered in line with the Vision of NEP 2020.

As per the new process, the institutes will be provided binary accreditation rather than grades. This, according to the government, will encourage all the institutions to get on board in the accreditation process and help create a quality culture in the higher education system of the country.

The institutions will be accredited from Level 1 to Level 4 (Institutions of National Excellence) and then to Level 5, i.e. Institutions of Global Excellence for Multi-Disciplinary Research and Education based on their maturity. This, according to the government, will enable the higher educational institutes of the country to significantly improve their quality and position themselves among the top global institutions.

Apart from these, the higher educational institutes located at rural and remote locations will be given special focus through mentoring and handholding.

"The metrics for both Binary and Maturity-based Graded accreditation shall focus on Processes, Outcomes and Impacr across differnet attributes of HEIs," said the official statement.

"The new process shall considder the heterogeneity of the HEIs in the country, categorise them based on their orientation/vision and heritage/legacy, and then seek information from the HEIs that are appropriate for their category rather than a one-size-fits-all model. There will be a special focus on rural and remote location institutions through mentoring and handholding," the statement added.

The council will implement the reforms in two stages and will start off with the implementation of Binary accreditation in the next four months.

The Binary Accreditation process will be implemented in the next four months and no new new applications will be accepted as per the present methodology thereafter.

"Institutions that have already applied and are applying in the next four months shall have the option to either go by the present process or by the new methodology of binary accreditation," the NAAC statement mentioned.

As part of the reform measure, the government has also proposed One Nation One Date Platform to ensure integrity and transparency in the handling of institutional data and to check its authenticity. This, according to the government will make the data collection and validation process system friendly, easy and smooth.