Patna: More than 200 institutions of higher education in Bihar are likely to be accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) under its new binary accreditation system to be introduced by the end of the current year.
Under the new system, there will be no grading from C to A++. The institutions will only be awarded a certificate of ‘Accredited’ or ‘Not accredited’ by NAAC following its assessment.
The NAAC conducts assessment and accreditation of higher educational institutions (HEI) such as colleges, universities or other recognised institutions to derive an understanding of the ‘quality status’ of the institution.
Bihar State Higher Education Council’s academic advisor and state nodal officer (NAAC) N K Agrawal told TOI that the institutions which have submitted their institutional information for quality assessment (IIQA) and self study report (SSR) till the end of June would be assessed as per old system of accreditation. All other institutions will now have to go for the new binary accreditation system, he said.
There are altogether 13 conventional universities and 272 constituent colleges in the state. Of them, only two universities, namely, Patna University (PU) and L N Mithila University (LNMU), and 64 colleges are accredited by the NAAC at present. Both PU and LNMU are accredited with B+ grade.
The LNMU has been accredited this year, but the five-year validity of PU’s accreditation will lapse in August this year. However, the NAAC has extended the validity for PU till December this year, said PU’s Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) director Birendra Prasad.
Prasad pointed out that PU will now volunteer for maturity-based graded accreditation (MBGA) system in which institutions are graded under the levels from 1 to 5. Institutions are encouraged to raise their bar to achieve the highest level of 5 which is “Institutions of Global Excellence for Multi-Disciplinary Research and Education”.
The level-grading system will help Indian institutions enhance their education facilities and quality and raise their standards to globally acclaimed institutions, he said.
Agrawal, however, pointed out that institutions would not feel scared of applying for NAAC accreditation in the binary accreditation system sans grading. He said that peer teams will not physically visit the institutions as part of the assessment under the new accreditation system.
In the new system, they will manage it with the help of technology. The accreditation fee has also been reduced. The proposed tentative framework of the new system has 10 attributes, including 59 metrics for universities, 56 for autonomous colleges, and 46 for affiliated colleges, Agrawal added.