Now, students will have a say in accreditation of varsities

Manash Gohain

New Delhi





Like universities abroad, students in India will now have a say in assessment and accreditation of their academic 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 (SSS) while offering accreditation from this year.

 

NAAC has made the new methodology completely digitised and technology-driven with far less human intervention. This was necessitated following complaints of corrupt practices during assessment in the past. The council re-opened the process for universities to apply for assessment on Thursday . In order to do away with “corruption“ and subjectivity in assessment and grading of higher education institutions, the ministry of human resource development had in March asked for a complete overhaul of the accreditation process.The new methodology gives just 20% weightage to peer team assessment instead of 100% as in the past in deciding the grade of an institution. In top universities across the globe, students' feedback for facultycourses 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.

 “This is an important factor in the assessment process and the online survey will be done in the second stage of the assessment,“ said Virander Singh Chauhan, chairperson of University Grants Commission. The MHRD, according to sources, has 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. According to sources in MHRD, concerns were raised over inferior institutions being granted good grades in the past. “So NAAC is planning to get the data submitted by an institution via Quality Indicator Framework,“ said the official.