Profile
The NATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND ACCREDITATION COUNCIL
(NAAC) is an autonomous body established by the
University Grants Commission (UGC) of India to assess
and accredit institutions of higher education in the
country. It is an outcome of the recommendations of
the National Policy in Education (1986) that laid
special emphasis on upholding the quality of higher
education in India.
The system of higher education in India
has expanded rapidly during the last fifty years. In
spite of the built-in regulatory mechanisms that ensure
satisfactory levels of quality in the functioning of
higher education institutions, there have been criticisms
that the country has permitted the mushrooming of institutions
of higher education with fancy programme and substandard
facilities and consequent dilution of standards.To address
the issues of deterioration in quality, the National
Policy on Education (1986) and the Plan of Action (POA-1992)
that spelt out the strategic plans for the policies,
advocated the establishment of an independent national
accreditation body. Consequently, the NAAC was established
in 1994 with its headquarters at Bangalore.
Governance
The NAAC functions through its General
Council (GC) and Executive Committee (EC) where educational
administrators, policy makers and senior academicians
from a cross-section of the system of higher education
are represented. The Chairperson of the UGC is the President
of the GC of the NAAC, the Chairperson of the EC is
an eminent academician in the area of relevance to the
NAAC. The Director of the NAAC is its academic and administrative
head, and is the member-secretary of both the GC and
EC. The NAAC also has many advisory and consultative
committees to guide its practices, in addition to the
statutory bodies that steer its policies. The NAAC has
a core staff and consultants to support its activities.
It also receives assistance from a large number of external
resource persons from across the country who are not
full time staff of the NAAC.
Vision
and Mission
The
activities and future plans of the NAAC are guided by
its vision and mission that focus on making quality
assurance an integral part of the functioning of higher
education institutions.
The vision of the NAAC is:
To make quality the defining element of higher
education in India through a combination of self
and external quality evaluation, promotion and sustenance
initiatives.
The mission statements of the NAAC
aim at translating the NAAC's vision into reality, defining
the following key tasks of the organisation:
- To
arrange for periodic assessment and accreditation
of institutions of higher education or units thereof,
or specific academic programme or projects.
- To
stimulate the academic environment for promotion
of quality of teaching-learning and research in
higher education institutions.
- To
encourage self-evaluation, accountability, autonomy
and innovations in higher education.
- To
undertake quality-related research studies,consultancy
and training programme.
- To
collaborate with other stakeholders of higher education
for quality evaluation, promotion and sustenance.
Guided
by its vision and striving to achieve its mission, the
NAAC primarily assesses the quality of institutions
of higher education that volunteer for the process,
through an internationally accepted methodology.
The
Methodology
For the assessment of a unit, the NAAC follows
a three-stage process which is a combination of
self-study and peer review. The three stages are:
-
The
preparation and submission of a self-study report
by the unit of assessment.
-
The
on-site visit of the peer team for validation
of the self-study report and for recommending
the assessment outcome to the NAAC.
-
The
final decision by the Executive Committee of the
NAAC.
The self-study report to be validated
by peers is the backbone of the whole exercise. Manuals
have been developed to suit different units of higher
education, with detailed guidelines on the preparation
of the self-study report and the other aspects of assessment
and accreditation.
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