Mumbai: Colleges certified with at least an ‘A’ grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) or have been given a score of over 50% by the National Board of Accreditation are to mentor 5 to 7 non-accredited colleges in their vicinity to get through the process as a part of the ‘Parees Sparsha’ scheme launched by the government of Maharashtra.
The state published this resolution on April 19, 2023, while approving a budget of Rs 13.5 crore for the scheme.
Under the scheme, mentor colleges will guide nearly 15-20 colleges each through NAAC, the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) assessments in the next three years. Nearly 150 Higher education colleges and 75 technical institutes will participate in the programme as mentors, who will be trained by the Maharashtra State Faculty Development Academy (MSFDA) in Pune.
An appointed member from the Internal Quality Assessment Cell (IQAC) of the Mentor College will visit the non-NACC/NBA assessed (mentee) institutions and guide them with the documentation and presentation required for evaluations.
A State Advisory Committee, University Level Committee, and a District Level Committee will be created to implement the scheme. If a college with A or above rating is not present in the area, the District Level Committee may select a college with B+ rating of NAAC as the guiding institution.
At present, only 1,368 of the state's 3,346 colleges have been assessed by NAAC, while 1,978 have never sought accreditation. Nearly 704 technical colleges in the state have never been evaluated as well.
