Top varsities to mentor Naac-aspirant colleges

NEW DELHI: Top Indian universities and colleges will share their expertise and resources with educational institutes, which have failed to meet the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)’S quality standards, under the University Grants Commission (UGC)’S ‘Paramarsh’ scheme. The UGC, which regulates higher education in the country, on Wednesday gave its nod to a proposal at meeting in New Delhi in this regard.

“Many educational institutions have not been doing well when it comes to NAAC accreditation, which assesses minimum quality standards. The focus is to ensure that every institution shall get NAAC accreditation with a minimum score of 2.5 by 2022. So, a scheme named Paramarsh received the commission’s in principle nod,” said a UGC member.

Mentor institutions, under the scheme, will have to guide the mentees in achieving high-quality standards, said another UGC member. He said hundreds of top performing universities and colleges would be chosen to lead others, which have failed to get good ratings.

The second UGC member said improving the quality and ensuring institutions and their courses are accredited is a major focus area. “A similar mentorship scheme has already been in the works for technical institutions. The new scheme aims to ensure that better performing varsities and colleges also help the ones lagging behind.”

Former UGC member Inder Mohan Kapahy said NAAC measures the quality of institutions on a scale of 4 by looking at various aspects like methodology of teaching, research, patents. “This is an attempt to raise the quality of several of our institutions, which could benefit from the better performing ones.”

A proposal for an institution to be in existence for at least 15 years to be conferred the status of a university was also discussed at the UGC meeting.

It is proposed that the institutions seeking the status should have high NAAC scores. Twothirds of courses should have the National Board of Accreditation go-ahead in case a technical institution is seeking the deemed status. “The proposal was discussed. However, it was felt that more deliberations were needed on this,” said another UGC member.