New quality check methods for varsities, colleges

Continuous assessment and accreditation for higher education institutions (HEIs) in the country has now become all the more important. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), an autonomous body by the University Grants Commission, has introduced a slew of reforms to encourage more HEIs to go for accreditation.

Elaborating on the new guidelines and other changes, Professor DP Singh, director, NAAC, says, “The changes have been introduced to reflect the institutions’ performance levels more distinctively as approved by the NAAC executive committee. More data-enabled assessment and accreditation is in the offing. The council is also working on bringing in ICT-enabled solutions to make the assessment and accreditation processes more objective.”

Since 2007, NAAC has been using the four-point grading (A,B,C and D) with CGPA and descriptors for each of the alphabetical grade assigned. “However, it has been a common feeling that four-point grading does not provide clear demarcation of the performance levels of the institutions with a large cohort of institutions clubbed into one single grade. This is why a sevenpoint grading system has been introduced,” says Professor Singh.

The new accreditation guidelines have been implemented from July 1. The present system of descriptors for letter grades, i.e., very good, good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory, has been discontinued in the revised grading system. All institutions will now be graded as per the revised grading system. Except for the letter grades to be assigned, all other aspects of assessment and accreditation methodology such as the criteria, key aspects, calculation of Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) remain the same.

Institutions already accredited in the earlier grading system will continue with the same accreditation status till their validity period. The new sevenpoint system ranges from 1.51 points to four points on the grading scale and from letters A++ to C. It was observed that the NAAC instruments need more objectivity to capture finer distinctions between various grade levels and therefore, it was agreed that to reflect the institution performance level with more distinctively, a seven-point scale with appropriate distribution of CGPA can be a better choice.