CHAPTERS

CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING THE HEIs BY NAAC—A

DISCUSSION

5.1 INTRODUCTION

India runs one of the largest systems of higher education in the world with complex
nature, catering to diverse needs. The importance of assessment for quality assurance
in the HEIs has become prominent globally since the late 20th century.

Variations in standard and quality are natural outcomes. Hence the NAAC was set up
in 1994 under the UGC Act to ensure quality in the HEIs. It is an autonomous body of
the UGC with the prime agenda of assessment and accreditation of HEIs in the
country. The NAAC has been continuously engaged in the promotion of quality in
HEIs in the country, making a significant difference in the Higher Education System
in India.

5.2 MAJOR REASONS FOR OPTING FOR ASSESSMENT AND

ACCREDITATION BY NAAC

• Recognition of the quality of excellence of the HEIs

• Self-improvement
• Building the institutional image and attract students from different places
• International recognition
• Insistence on accreditation by the state governments

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 • Incentives from the government and other funding agencies
• Pre-condition for getting the Autonomous/Deemed University status or
permanent affiliation status

5.3 APPREHENSIONS ABOUT NAAC ASSESSMENT

• Fear of the unknown

• Fear of not getting the desired accreditation status
• Lack of enthusiasm on the part of management and staff to take up the
preparation work
• Reservations about the assessment of quality by an external agency
• Belief that one can ignore the process as it is not a mandatory activity at
present

5.4 NAAC’s RELATIONSHIP WITH THE IIEIs

NAAC’s relationship with the HEIs is based on the following understanding:

1. Recognition that institutional and programme quality assurance is primarily
the responsibility of the HEIs themselves
2. Respect for the academic autonomy, identity and integrity of the institutions
and/or their programmes
3. Application of standards or criteria that have been subject to reasonable
consultation with stakeholders
4. Aiming to contribute to both quality improvement and accountability by the
institution

The process of assessment and accreditation has created a tremendous momentum

among the academia on issues pertaining to quality and this has largely been due to
the successful partnership between the NAAC and the State Governments.

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5.5 OBJECTIVES OF NAAC1

1. To grade HEIs and their programmes

2. To stimulate the academic environment and quality of teaching and research in
these institutions
3. To help institutions realize their academic objectives
4. To promote necessary changes, innovations and reforms in all aspects of the
institutions working for the above purpose
5. To encourage innovations, self evaluation and accountability in higher
education

5.6 NAAC’s VALUE FRAMEWORK2

The NAAC aims to promote the following core values among the HEIs of the
country:

• Contributing to national development

• Fostering global competencies among students
• Inculcating a value system in students
• Promoting the use of technology
• Quest for excellence

5.7 STRUCTURE OF NAAC 3

The NAAC’s working is governed by the General Council (GC) and the Executive
Committee (EC) on which UGC, AICTE, Ministry of Human Resource Development
(MHRD), Association of Indian Universities (AIU), universities, colleges and other

1 www.naacindia.org
2 ibid.
3 ibid.

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professional institutions are represented. Senior academics and educational
administrators are nominated as members on these two bodies.

5.8 ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

The prime agenda of the NAAC is to assess and accredit HEIs. It has continuous
collaborations with the state governments by establishing Quality Assurance Cell (QAC)
and State Level Quality Assurance Coordination Committee (SLQACC) in each state. This
QAC primarily focuses on the preparation of the colleges to undergo the processes of
assessment and accreditation. Many quality improvement programmes have been organized
jointly by NAAC and QACs of the states4.

NAAC activities may be viewed at two levels:

— Awareness programmes on Assessment and Accreditation
— Post-accreditation programmes

The awareness/promotional programmes mainly explain the policy, direction and

Guidelines of the MHRD, UGC and NAAC for assessment and accreditation. The
post- accreditation activities on quality sustenance and quality enhancement are by
means of Student Participation in Quality Assurance (SPQA), sharing of Best
Practices for Quality Enhancement (BPQE) and establishing a functional Internal
Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) in each accredited college/university5.

The NAAC also constantly review its mechanisms, procedures and methodology. In
addition to this, the NAAC brings out quality publications in collaboration with
international agencies and undertakes research projects funded by external agencies
and the NAAC’s academic staff members participate in such programmes. It regularly
interacts with the international and national quality assurance agencies for sharing and
exchange of knowledge, experience and practices.

4 Seven Point Action Plan of SLQACC (2007)

5 Ten Action Points for Internal Quality Assurance Cells (2007)

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Every category of stakeholders of higher education (e.g., govemment(s),
managements, students, external quality assurance agencies, etc.) has a role to play in
quality enhancement and sustenance. The NAAC strives to play a catalytic role in
synergizing the stakeholders efforts. Of all the stakeholders, the students have a
unique role to play in ensuring the quality of HEIs. An initiation has been made by the
NAAC in this direction by developing a sample Student Charter for all HEIs. It is
hoped that the charter will help HEIs articulate their obligations to learners in clear
terms and that can be used as a benchmark for an HEI’s accountability to learners.
The NAAC advocates the public display of students’ charter in every institution as an
act of promotion of students’ participation in Quality Assurance6.

5.9 NEW METHODOLOGY7

All professional organizations undergo a review cycle to assess their performance

from time to time. The NAAC has been continuously making efforts to fine tune the
instruments of assessment to achieve greater objectivity and accuracy in its
assessment process and declaring the assessment outcome to enable an HEI to assure
quality.

Processes included in the new assessment and accreditation instrument are:

• To identify the key aspects under each criterion (mentioned below in
Table 2) and appropriate assessment indicators under each key aspect
(mentioned below in Table 3)
• To provide for key aspect-wise and criterion-wise differential weightages
for different types of institutions
• To change the grading pattern from the 9-point scale to the 3-letter grades,
i.e., “A”, “B” and “C” for accredited institutions and “D” for not
accredited ones. As per the changed grading system:
‘A’— very good

6 www.naacindia.org
7 Institutional Accreditation—Manual for Self-Study: Affiliated/Constituent Colleges (w.e.f. 1st April
2007); ibid.

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 ‘B’— good
‘C’— satisfactory
‘D’— unsatisfactory
• To use appropriate descriptors related to the quality levels coupled with the
letter grades
• To shift the institutional overall scoring pattern from the scores/percentages to
the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) System on a 4-point scale as
shown in below in Table 1.

TABLE 1
CGPA Letter Grade Performance Descriptor
3.01-4.00 A Very Good (Accredited)
2.01-3.00 B Good (Accredited)
1.51-2.00 C Satisfactory (Accredited)
<1.50 D Unsatisfactory (Not Accredited)

The different criteria along with their weightages are given in the Table2 below
TABLE 2
Serial Criteria Affiliated/Constituent
Number College
1 Curricular Aspects 50
(5%)
2 Teaching-Learning and 450
Evaluation (45%)
3 Research, Consultancy and 100
Extension (10%)
4 Infrastructure and Learning 100
Resources (10%)
5 Student Support and 100
Progression (10%)

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 Serial Criteria Affiliated/Constituent
Number College
6 Governance and Leadership 150
(15%)
7 Innovative Practices 50
(5%)
Total Score 1000

The Key Aspects and the Key Aspect-wise differential Weightages under each
criterion are also specified as detailed in Table 3 below.
TABLE 3
Criteria Key Aspects Affiliated College
I. Curricular 1.1 Curricular Design and 10
Aspects Development
1.2 Academic Flexibility 15
1.3 Feedback on Curriculum 10

1.4 Curriculum Update 05

1.5 Best Practices in Curricular 10
Aspects
Total 50
2.1 Admission Process and 30
Student Profile
II. Teaching- 2.2 Catering to Diverse Needs 45
Learning and 2,3 Teaching-learning Process 270
Evaluation 2.4 Teacher Quality 65
2.5Evaluation Process and 30
Reforms
2.6Best Practices in Teaching, 10
Learning and Evaluation
Total 450

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 Criteria Key Aspects Affiliated College
III. Research, 3.1 Promotion of Research 15
Consultancy 3 ^Research and Publication 25
and Extension Output
3.3 Consultancy 05
3.4 Extension Activities 40
3.5 Collaborations 05
3.6 Best Practices in Research, 10
Consultancy & extension
Total 100
IV. 4.1 Physical Facilities 20
Infrastructure 4.2 Maintenance of Infrastructure 10
and Learning 4.3 Library as a Learning 35
Resources Resource
4.4 ICT as Learning Resources 15
4.5 Other Facilities 10
4.6 Best Practices in the 10
Development of Infrastructure and
Learning Resources
TOTAL 100
V. Student 5.1 Student Progression 30
Support and 5.2 Student Support 30
Progression 5.3 Student Activities 30
5.4 Best Practices in Student 10
Support and Progression
TOTAL 100
VI. 6.1 Institutional Vision and 15
Governance Leadership
and 6.2 Organizational Arrangements 20
Leadership 6.3 Strategy Development and 30
Deployment

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 Criteria Key Aspects Affiliated College
VI. 6.4 Human resource Management 40
Governance 6.5 Financial Management and 35
and Resource Mobilization
Leadership 6.6 Best Practices in Governance 10
and Leadership
TOTAL 150
VII. 7!l Internal Quality Assurance 20
Innovative System
Practices 7.2 Inclusive Practices 15
7.3 Stakeholder Relationships 15
TOTAL 50

The status of institutions accredited under current methodology as on December 30,

2009 is given below in Table 4.
TABLE 4
Types Of HEIs Accredited Re-accredited
Universities 12 35
Colleges 556 126
(Source: NAACNEWS, Vol X, Issue!, March 2010)
From the above table, it is seen that there are 12 accredited universities and 35 re­
accredited universities in India. Again, there are 556 accredited colleges and 126 re­
accredited colleges in India.

5-10 INTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE CELL fiOAC)8

The NAAC advocates the establishment of IQAC by all the accredited institutions as
a post-accreditation quality sustenance activity. The primary aim of IQAC is to
develop a system for conscious, consistent and catalytic action to improve the

8 Ten Action Points for Internal Quality Assurance Cells (2007); www.naacindia.org

55
academic and administrative performance of the institution. It is expected to
contribute:
—to a heightened level of clarity and to focus on institutional functioning towards
quality enhancement and to facilitate internalization of the quality culture
—to the enhancement of, and integration among, the various activities of the
institution and to the institutionalization of many good practices
—to provide a sound basis for decision-making to improve institutional functioning
—to act as a change agent in the institution
—to better internal communication

5.11 INSTITUTIONAL ELIGIBILITY FOR QUALITY ASSESSMENT9

So far, the NAAC has conducted 10 meetings of Committee for Recommendation of

Institutional Eligibility for Quality Assessment (CRIEQA) from April 01, 2007. Out
of 1203 institutions across the country, which have applied for getting IEQA status,
840 institutions (70%) have been recommended to go for assessment and
accreditation (A & A) and 363 institutions (30%) have been declared as ‘Not
Recommended’ and these have been advised to take corrective measures. The region-
wise break-up of IEQA status of all the institutions in India is shown below in
Table5.

TABLE5
Region-wise Break-up of IEQA Status of Institutions as on November 30,2009
Region No. of institutions No. of institutions No. of institutions
applied recommended not recommended
North 368 246 122
South 190 165 25
East & North- 194 141 53
Eastern

9 Ten Action Points for Internal Quality Assurance Cells (2007); www.naacindia.org

56
Region-wise Break-up of IEQA Status of Institutions as on November 30,2009
West 451 288 163
Total 1203 840 363
(70%) (30%)

(Source: NAACNEWS, VolX, Issue 1, March 2010)

Fro the above it is seen that out of 363 ineligible institutions, 45% of them are from
Western region followed by Northern region (34%) and East & North-Eastern region
(15%). Southern region has a low percentage (6%) of ineligible institutions

5.12 FUTURE PRACTICES

1. Implementation of the new (A&A) methodology

2. Assessment to cover all HEIs of the country in a phased manner
3. Department/Programme-wise accreditation and international accreditation
4. Benchmarking and new ranking model
5. NAAC associateship and fellowship
6. Promotion of IQACs in all colleges and universities
7. Dissemination of best practices amongst HEIs
8. Development of a pool of trained assessors
9. Promotion of ‘in house’ research on quality assurance
10. NAAC’s capacity building

The NAAC has been continuously fine-tuning its A & A methodologies to reach
out to the target institutions, to achieve notable recognition and wider acceptance.
The methodologies have been fine-tuned from time to time considering the
prevailing higher education scenario and feedback from different categories of
stakeholders. It was an uphill task for the NAAC to take up the A & A of such a
huge number of HEIs in India, as there was an initial unwillingness on the part of
the institutions to go for assessment by an external agency.

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 The NAAC had to devise strategies and work round hard to create quality culture
among all the stakeholders. It required great commitment and conviction on the
part of the NAAC staff to motivate the people in the higher echelons of decision
making in the HEIs to appreciate the need for assessment and accreditation of the
HEIs by an outside agency like the NAAC.

Keeping in tune with its mission and vision, the NAAC has, at present, accredited
more than 4000 HEIs10. It has a huge database of expert assessors on its panel and
a good number of resource persons to spread quality culture among the HEIs,
thereby, ushering in a systematic quality assurance mechanism in the entire higher
education system.

10 NAAC NEWS, Vol X, Issue 1, March 2010

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REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER 5

NAAC PUBLICATIONS
1. Institutional Accreditation—Manual for Self-Study: Affiliated/Constituent
Colleges (w.e.f. 1st April 2007)
2. NAAC NEWS (2010), X (1), March
3. Seven Point Action Plan ofSLQACC (2007)
4. Ten Action Points for Internal Quality Assurance Cells (2007)

WEBSITES VISITED (Last Accessed On March 31,2011)

1. www. naacindia. org

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