Soon, a state accreditation council to assess schools

From January, parents and students will be able to gauge the quality of schools by looking at the assessment and grading done by the State Assessment and Accreditation Council. State Education Minister Pursuhottam Bhapkar announced that the assessment body might be established by January. “We have been working on it for many months now and by next academic year, it is likely to be in force. Just like how students and parents can gauge the quality of a college by looking at their grading done by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), similarly State Assessment and Accreditation Council (SAAC) will give grading to schools. Gradation by SAAC will be mandatory for all schools and they will have to display their SAAC scores,” said Bhapkar. He said the body would likely be under the wings of the education commissionerate. The establishment of SAAC has been long delayed.

The idea was first mooted in 2013 and later, a study group of 16 members plus a working group were set up to look into the formation and structure of SAAC, proposing it’s standards and how it would be implemented. Bhapkar said the evaluation would be mandatory for all schools – government, aided or unaided – and belonging to any board including state board, ICSE, CBSE and IB schools. The primary job of SAAC would be to rate schools, based on benchmarks like infrastructure for students, teaching methodologies and learning resources and study outcomes, among other parameters. NAAC currently follows a four pronged grading pattern, in which colleges are given grades in four categories – A, B, C and D – from very good to unsatisfactory levels, depending on score obtained.

“We are thinking of an incentive-punishment kind of structure. If schools have high grades, then they will receive various incentives. If they get low grades, we will give them a period of three years for improvement, otherwise they would be penalised,” said Bhapkar.