The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is planning to align the assessment and accreditation process in higher education with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
‘The System of Assessment and Accreditation in India’, a White Paper draft prepared by NAAC, says the system of assessment and accreditation in India must be aligned to the National Education Policy 2020 and Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
“A robust system of accreditation should be created, based on the principles of transparency, self-disclosure, handholding, mentoring, incubation, and ongoing quality improvement. The manual for assessment may contain two parts, one exclusively covering the General Education component, and the other covering the Specialised Education component. HEIs (higher education institutions) are to be assessed and accredited in a binary mode while units/programmes can be assessed and graded,” it says, adding that the assessment approach needs to shift from the “input-driven mode to assessing the outcomes of education.”
“Technology-enabled, real-time formative assessment needs to be introduced to reduce the burden of HEIs in data collection. A Multiple-Accreditation-Agencies model needs to be developed carefully so as to meet growing needs,” it adds.
S.C. Sharma, Director of NAAC, told The Hindu, “Karnataka is the first State which implemented the NEP. In the coming years, other States will also follow. So, our executive chairman has asked us to map to our seven criteria with NEP 2020 and Sustainable Development Goals 2030. This is helpful as higher education should cater to all sections of people, like socio-economic disadvantaged groups, and autonomous colleges, multidisciplinary colleges, all the matrix should be captured in an effective manner”.
Proposed framework
Now, the function of NAAC is monitoring of quality compliance of the HIEs. But the proposed functions are quality enhancement, quality maintenance, assessment and accreditation.
In future, instead of graded accreditation of HEIs, binary accreditation of HEIs and graded accreditation of academic programs/constituent units will come. The focus of assessment and accreditation will be based on learning outcomes.
Criteria for assessment and accreditation will be function and outcome-based on general educatedness, skills/abilities for specialised education, contribution to research/innovation, says the White Paper.
