New Delhi: The Ministry of Human Resource Development has roped in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) for speedy assessment and accreditation of higher education institutes in the country.
The IITs and IIMs will aid existing accrediting bodies such as the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in expediting the process of certification.
A senior ministry official said the NBA and the NAAC are overburdened, with over 30,000 educational institutes to assess by 2022. “They cannot do the job alone,” the official said.
The official said a separate body will be created to identify more such institutes that can help NAAC and the NBA. A meeting in this regard will be held by the University Grants Commission next week.
“We are looking to create a new body that will identify accrediting institutions. Three IITs have already come forward to float a company that will act as an accrediting body. The idea is to identify more such organisations,” the official said.
IIT-Delhi, IIT-Madras and IIT-Kharagpur have now floated an accrediting agency for engineering colleges. So far, engineering institutes affiliated to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) were given accreditation for their programmes by the NBA.
“The new agency will give accreditation to institutions by measuring various parameters such as student-teacher ratio, infrastructure and quality of research, among other things,” an IIT-Delhi official told ThePrint.
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‘Govt should focus on infrastructure first’
NAAC and NBA officials, however, are unhappy with the government’s latest move.
An NBA official, who did not wish to be identified, said: “Instead of creating more accreditation agencies, the government should let the current ones function better. It’s the infrastructure that needs to improve first…if there are no students in a college or no teachers, how are we supposed to give them accreditation?”
The official further said if the government wants to complete accreditation of higher educational institutes by 2022, it should focus on improving facilities first.
Countering this, another ministry official said NAAC and NBA will soon understand the pressures of accreditation work when there will be more institutions to assess. “There are 30,000 institutions that are not accredited currently, and we want them to get certification soon. These additional bodies will help,” the official added.
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80% of 30000 institute are of inferior quality