Explained: Accrediting colleges, varsities

What is accreditation, and how does it help an educational institution and its students?

Accreditation, put simply, is a quality check exercise. Through a multi-layered process steered by the NAAC, a higher education institution gets to know whether it meets certain standards of quality set by the evaluator in terms of curriculum, faculty, infrastructure, research and financial well-being among others. Based on these parameters, the NAAC gives institutions grades ranging from A++ to C. If an institution is graded D, it means it is not accredited.

NAAC director Prof S C Sharma told The Indian Express that apart from recognition, being accredited also helps institutions attract capital as funding agencies look for objective data for performance funding. It helps an institution know its strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities through an informed review process.

Prof Sharma said NAAC accreditation helps students going for higher education abroad as many global higher education authorities insist on recognition and accreditation of the institution where the student has studied. Moreover, employers also look for reliable information on the quality of prospective recruits’ education, and an NAAC grading helps.

How many institutions in India are accredited?

There are 1,043 universities and 42,343 colleges listed on the portal of the All India Survey on Higher Education. As of February 8, there were 392 universities and 8,483 colleges that were NAAC-accredited.

Region-wise, the northern states have the highest number of accredited universities at 136, followed by the south with 113, the west with 72, the east with 52 and the Northeast with 19. Among accredited colleges, the west leads the list with 2,623, followed by the south with 2,597, the north with 1,806, the east with 1,100, and the Northeast with 357.

Among the states, Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of accredited colleges at 1,796, which is more than twice as many as the Karnataka’s 864, the next highest. Tamil Nadu has the most accredited universities at 43.

Sharma said Pondicherry University is among the oldest accredited universities while the International Institute for Population Studies in Mumbai underwent its first cycle of accreditation very recently.

Why are so few institutes accredited?

According to current and former officials of the NAAC, the fear of obtaining a poor grading or no accreditation at all holds back higher education institutes from voluntarily applying for evaluation. “A poor grading would affect marketing. As long as an institute is not accredited, the management can claim they are in the process of applying. But a bad grading can have consequences,” a former NAAC official said.

This happens despite accreditation having been made mandatory through the University Grants Commission (Mandatory Assessment and Accreditation of higher Educational Institutions) Regulations 2012.

In 2019, the UGC launched a scheme, Paramarsh, to address the issue. “Under the scheme, some of the best performing institutes were identified to serve as mentors to at least five institutes aspiring to get accredited. They were expected to raise the confidence of the aspirants by handholding them through the process. Around 160 institutes had signed up to mentor around 1,000 institutes eyeing accreditation,” said former UGC chairman D P Singh, who steered the Paramarsh scheme.

Singh, who has also served as NAAC director in the past, added that over time institutes are realising that accreditation helps in institutional development, increase in enrolment, output of research publications.

What are the current rules for accreditation?

Under the rules before the new guidelines were issued, only higher education institutions that are at least six years old, or from where at least two batches of students have graduated, could apply for accreditation with NAAC. The accreditation is valid for five years. Aspiring institutes need to be recognised by the UGC and have regular students enrolled into their full-time teaching and research programmes.

There are only 12 universities and 64 colleges that have been reviewed by the NAAC four times, with a gap of five years between each grading. When an institution undergoes the accreditation process for the first time it is referred to as Cycle 1, and the subsequent five-year periods as Cycles 2, 3 and so on. Distance education units and offshore campuses are not covered under the accreditation process.

And what will the new guidelines change?

Under the new manual, colleges and universities that have completed even one academic year will be eligible to apply for a newly created category of ‘Provisional Accreditation for Colleges’ or PAC. NAAC believes PAC will help realise the goal of the National Education Policy, 2020 to accredit all higher education institutes in India in a phased manner.

Singh, the former UGC chairman, said the National Education Policy envisages a National Accreditation Council under which many independent accreditation bodies will function other than NAAC. The PAC, which will not offer any grading, will be valid for two years, and institutions cannot get it more than two times.

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How is the accreditation process carried out?

The first step involves an applicant institution submitting a self-study report containing information related to quantitative and qualitative metrics. The data is then validated by expert teams of NAAC. The quality aspects are reviewed during site visits.

The final result is a combination of the evaluation of qualitative and quantitative metrics.