Indore: National Assessment and Accreditation Council opens registration link for provisional accreditation

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has opened an online registration link for colleges willing to obtain provisional accreditation.

The link will remain open till 12 noon on February 24.

With finding the target of having all higher education institutions under its accreditation cover by 2022 impossible to achieve, NAAC has come up with a scheme to allure colleges shining away from getting their standards assessed and obtaining accreditation.

The national agency, which is a statutory body of University Grants Commission (UGC), is now going to grant provisional accreditation to colleges which had not secured accreditation from it so far.

Any college offering regular programmes of higher education at undergraduate and above levels are eligible to apply for provisional accreditation provided such colleges must have completed at least one academic year (from student admission to announcement of results).

The validation of provisional accreditation for college (PAC) will be valid for only two years.

The Union Ministry of Education, previously known as the Ministry of Human Resource Development, in 2013 had announced that it would be necessary for all universities and colleges to obtain accreditation from NAAC by 2022.

There are more than 1200 universities and around 45000 colleges in the country. Of them currently, merely 356 universities and close to 2000 colleges are accredited from NAAC.

With no scope to even achieve the target even in the next two decades with most institutions reluctant to get their standards assessed by any external agency, NAAC has come up with a PAC scheme.

This PAC scheme, NAAC believes will encourage colleges to go for accreditation in the long run.

PAC only for two consecutive times

NAAC cleared that colleges cannot opt for PAC for more than two consecutive times and that they will not be associated with any cycles of accreditations.

The accreditation fee for PAC shall be Rs 10,000 + GST. The outcome of PAC will be binary in nature, viz “Provisionally Accredited” or “Not Accredited”.

Colleges which are “Not Accredited" are eligible to apply again after a period of 6 months but within one year date of result declaration.

The peer team will consist of two member teams consisting of one VC/director/professor and one principal of a similar type of institution.

There may be an observer from the affiliating university/state government/NAAC nominee on need basis.

The college should comply with public disclosure of all documents submitted to NAAC in the college website in PDF.

The PAC is similar to graded accreditation for any claim benefits accorded to colleges wherever grade based benefits are not insisted on.

The colleges will be provisioned with independent ombudsmen for grievance redressal.

The college has to mandatorily secure a minimum score of 15 out of 40 for getting provisional accreditation.