Assessment of Institutions Goes Digital - Now, students will have a say in accreditation of varsities

Assessment of Institutions Goes Digital - Now, students will have a say in accreditation of varsities

Like universities abroad, students in India will now have a say in assessment and accreditation of their institutions. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which launched its new methodology for grading universities, will give 20% weightage to online student satisfaction survey while offering accreditation from this year.

Following complaints of corrupt practices during assessment, NAAC has made the new methodology completely digitised with less human intervention. It will also do away with subjectivity in assessment and grading of higher education institutions. The council re-opened the process for universities to apply for assessment on Thursday .The move comes after the HRD ministry had, in March, asked for a complete overhaul of the accreditation process after concerns were raised over inferior institutions being granted good grades. The new methodology gives just 20% weightage to peer team assessment instead of 100% as in the past in deciding the grade of an institu tion. In top universities across the globe, students' feedback for faculty courses is mandatory and an important aspect of assessment. Many universities use this as an internal ranking parameter as well.

According to sources, NAAC's SSS will carry 20% weightage during the assessment and grading. Institutions will have to provide email IDs of students and an online survey will be conducted. “The online sur vey will be done in the second stage of the assessment,“ said Virander Singh Chauhan, chairperson of University Grants Commission (UGC).

The MHRD, according to sources, had also asked the council to outsource the entire travel and logistics of the peer team.  “Till now the institutions used to arrange the logistics of the peer team. From now on, they will have no say in this matter and till the last moment the institution will not know who is visiting them for the on site assessment, “ said a ministry official. “NAAC is planning to get data submitted by an institution via Quality Indicator Framework (Self Study Report SSR), validated by an external agency. “

NAAC stopped the online application process in March and it convened a consultative meet in Delhi in April to frame the accreditation guidelines. Sources said the online application process for colleges is likely to commence from August.

Source | Times of India | 7 July 2017

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Rizvi Institute of Management