Bengaluru: Educational institutions may have to take greater care of how they treat their students in future as their accreditation could depend on it.
Under the revised accreditation framework of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) direct feedback will be received from students on submissions made by colleges applying for accreditation. The council will randomly select 10 per cent of the total number of enrolled students in each institution for the survey, which will be conducted concurrent to Data Validation and Verification
Adding to this effort at improving transparency, the revised accreditation process will be Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enabled, according to a statement from NAAC. The council has also decided to reduce the number of questions, size of the report and the number of visit days by its team of experts for onsite review of the colleges in question. Responding to the new format, education expert and consultant, A.V. Varghese, says the integration of student satisfaction with the accreditation process is a welcome development. A postgraduate student, John T from a college in the city believes the new guidelines will give NAAC the real picture about institutions. “Colleges usually put on a totally presentable face during a NAAC visit. I hope the colleges now don’t come up with guidelines for students on how to give the NAAC feedback!” he added. NAAC has decided not to disclose the details of the visiting team prior to onsite assessment. And institutions will now qualify for a team visit only if they score a minimum cut-off of 30 per cent in the System Generated Score (SGS) generated during the process. An autonomous body accredited by University Grants Commission.
