NAAC Accreditation

An Overview of NAAC Accreditation

NAAC or National Assessment & Accreditation Council is a government organisation in India that assesses and accredits HEIs (Higher Education Institutions). NAAC (National Assessment & Accreditation Council) was established by the UGC in September 1994 in Bangalore to evaluate the performance of the universities & colleges in the country. NAAC Accreditation includes the task of performance evaluation, assessment, and Accreditation of universities & colleges in the country. In other words, NAAC Accreditation can be defined as a measure to evaluate & then guarantee an education standard provided in higher institutions across the country. The University Grant Commission (UGC) issued a decree stipulating that every University & faculty must get Certification by the Council called NAAC. The role of NAAC Accreditation is to bring the best to every institution & help institutions grow across research, student success, innovation, governance & more.

Mission of the NAAC

The mission of the NAAC shows the long-term goals of the NAAC Committee when it comes to education. Following are the major highlights of the NAAC mission:

• Periodic assessments of the teaching-learning methods;
• Undertaking research and training programs for student success;
• Promote the educational environment with research and proven educational techniques;
• Collaboration with the stakeholders for improvement and feedback in work;
• Encourage the concept of edTech, self-evaluation, autonomy, and innovation.

Assessment & Accreditation (A&A) Framework of NAAC

The new A&A Framework (revised) of NAAC shows the paradigm shift in the evaluation of the educational core values. The main highlights of the assessment process are as follows:

• Qualitative peer judgment is replaced with the new & updated data-based quantitative analysis to get better transparency;
• Simplification of the reports;
• The new element of the 3^rd party data valuation;
• Online evaluation score (70% weightage);
• More participation of students and alumni in the overall NAAC assessment process;
• Pre-qualifier for the NAAC peer team visit (SGS Score – 30%);
• ICT-enabled institutions can qualify for the quality test more quickly as it promotes the use of edTech.

The NAAC committee has demanded Documents and compliance for the past 5 years. Here, institutions or colleges need to be careful in compiling a bunch of data as the probability of errors is high.

Benefits of NAAC Accreditation for HEIs and Students

It identifies the quality of the institute in terms of its faculty, research, education, infrastructure, etc., as well as giving students confidence that they are selecting a quality institution or college. It gives an institute instant credibility & increases its admissions. Following are the benefits of obtaining NAAC Accreditation for Students and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs):

• Improves internal processes and communication: To ensure seamless internal processes during the NAAC Accreditation, Higher Education Institutes focus on inter and intra-institutional communication and thus eliminate the communication gap between students and faculty.
• Ensures teaching success: The journey of Accreditation introduces institutions to modern & innovative educational methods. In the long run, it evaluates the image of the institution and offers a new direction for success.
• SWOT analysis and continuous evaluation: It helps the institution identify its strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities using a continuous evaluation process.
• Best practices for quality improvement: Further, the SWOT analysis enables the institutions to understand the need for planning in the internal areas & allocating resources.
• Maximises Recruitment Rate of Students: It provides the institutions with consistent details regarding the quality of courses offered so that the colleges or institutes, or universities can adopt the best practices. An organisation prefers to recruit candidates with better skills and knowledge.

NAAC Criteria Wise Weightage

All three types of institutions are graded & ranked using 7 criteria and 34 KIs (Key Indicators). Each KI has a certain value & weightage and is different for the different types. Institutions seeking Accreditation need to attain that value to get ranked & certified. The NAAC emphasises ERP Software as one of the criteria.

Eligibility Criteria for the NAAC Accreditation

According to NAAC, the eligibility criteria for getting NAAC Accreditation are quite simple yet very strict. The colleges & universities that want to get successfully accredited by NAAC need to fit into the given NAAC Accreditation criteria:

• Central, State, Private and Deemed to be colleges and universities are eligible;
• The A&A (Assessment & Accreditation) process of NAAC considers the HEIs recognised by autonomous colleges and universities;
• The HEIs campus must be in the Indian region. No off-shore campuses are entertained by the NAAC committee.

Documents Required for NAAC Accreditation

Following is the list of Documents required before applying for the NAAC Accreditation:

Documents Required for Colleges:

• Latest affiliation letter(s) for the current academic year along with the copy of the application & fee details;
• UGC 2F and 12(B) recognition certificate along with the latest Plan or General Development Grant release letter from the UGC;
• Current academic year approval or recognition letter from SRA (Statutory Regulatory Authority) bodies such as MCI, PCI, AICTE, BCI, etc.;

Documents for Autonomous Colleges:

• HEIs covered by any SRA or UGC must submit the approvals from the respective SRA or UGC indicating the change;
• Letter from UGC conferring Autonomous Status;
• Latest AISHE Certificate or provide the relevant message indicating the DCF number as proof from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) portal;
• Self-declaration concerning Affiliation status in the format provided by NAAC.

Documents Required for University:

• UGC 2f and 12(B) recognition certificate;
• Approval of MHRD or UGC or State Government certifying the establishment of the University;
• Current academic year recognition or approval letter from SRA (Statutory Regulatory Authority) like MCI, PCI, AICTE, BCI.

NAAC Accreditation Process

The UGC (University Grants Commission) has made NAAC a mandate by 2022. Colleges, universities and institutes are using NAAC as a measure to authenticate their quality standards. Therefore, NAAC Accreditation has a unique process with a Self-Study Report that drills down to achieving institutional excellence. By the time an institute becomes NAAC-ready.

Assessment & Accreditation Process

NAAC’s process is simple & straightforward. The HEIs that prepare for the NAAC Accreditation are put to assess themselves in different ways:

• Submission of Documents related to SSR (Self Study Report);
• Institutional Information for Quality Assessment (IIQA).

By these, the HEIs prove their compliance with the criteria & policies laid down by the NAAC Committee.

As per the Revised Accreditation Framework, the NAAC has 3 different levels of ICT-enabled accreditation process:

• Student Satisfaction Survey;
• Data Verification;
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All these steps call for data gathering and reporting. Corpbiz has a centralised Accreditation management software that is built to simplify & automate strategic assessment & outcome tracking of the whole accreditation process.

How will Corpbiz help you in easing Data Management for Accreditation?

Corpbiz has built an Accreditation Data Management System to help institutions collect, analyse, and manage data required by NAAC. This system provides an analysis of data points entered across. It is integrated with ERP providing the best support and auto-fetching of data.