– Mita Mukherjee

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is planning to introduce a new policy to assess and award grades to institutions of higher education which will phase out physical inspections of campuses, NAAC sources said.

The proposed grading policy – Maturity-Based Graded Levels, recommended by an expert committee, is expected to weed out alleged “corrupt practices” reports of which were recently reported involving some institutions.

Recently, an institution in Andhra Pradesh had allegedly bribed members of NAAC peer team to get a higher rating than what it deserved. Similar complaints of irregularities were also reported in 2023.

Anil D Sahasrabudhe, chairperson of NAAC Executive Committee, told EducationWorld that the NAAC is determined to eliminate such corrupt practices through proper actions.

“It is observed that the NAAC Peer Review system has faced a challenging situation due to the recent CBI case. These are undesirable to the higher education system, and NAAC being a quality assurance agency is determined to eliminate such practices through definitive actions. While the efforts made in the recent past have helped to improve the processes, considering the current developments, NAAC is planning to take additional steps to refine the system by eliminating the scope for unfair practices,” Sahasrabudhe said.

According to the recommendations of the expert committee, institutions of higher education will be assessed through a new system the starting with a simple process where the council can check whether an institution meets basic quality standards which will be followed by Maturity-Based Graded Levels, a much more detailed process in which an institution will be assessed on its overall quality and growth.

In a statement, Sahasrabudhe said: “……, the executive committee of NAAC has decided that the current process of accreditation of involved university in the CBI case is summarily cancelled, and the university will be debarred for 5 years from applying for accreditation. 

It is also decided that all the seven members of the Peer Team are debarred for lifetime in assessment or any other activities of NAAC with immediate effect. In addition, it is decided to review the recent visits to HEIs by any of the seven members for which the results are not declared. The results of such HEIs will be withheld, and the Standing Committee of NAAC may critically review before declaring the results. 

In addition, it is decided that the visits of the last one year will be carefully analysed and put up to EC for further necessary action. Implementation of the above the new frameworks (Basic accreditation and MBGL) along with use of advanced IT-based features shall not only bring in objectivity in assessment but also eliminate any unfair practices.”

Saharabudhe said the council has stopped accepting applications in the old format.

According to NAAC, a series of reforms based on the report of the committee headed by ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan in January 2024 is underway. The report submitted to the Union education ministry has approved it.

Under the existing system of accreditation, the institutions are required to apply for accreditation and submit a self-study report where the institutions are required to provide details such as number of students, teachers, infrastructure facilities details and data relating to research, students’ performance etc. The entire set of data is then examined by the NAAC expert team which is followed by spot evaluation by peer team members.

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