Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The Department of Higher Education (DHE) has selected a total of 210 government colleges which it will get provisionally accredited from National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) this year.
Experts are granting training to the colleges so that they can get provisional accreditation from NAAC, an autonomous body of University Grants Commission (UGC).
The DHE has said that training of colleges in Indore, Bhopal, Sagar and Ujjain divisions is over whereas training is still to be given to colleges in Jabalpur, Rewa and Gwalior.
The DHE has directed the colleges not to register for provisional accreditation until orders for the same are received from the department.
The list of 210 colleges comprises 28 from Bhopal, 38 from Gwalior, 21 from Indore, 29 from Jabalpur, 39 from Rewa, 27 from Sagar and 18 from Ujjain.
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 has offered 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.
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, only 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 as most institutions are reluctant to get their standards assessed by any external agency, NAAC has come up with a PAC scheme.
PAC only for two consecutive times
NAAC has said that colleges cannot opt for PAC for more than two consecutive times and that it will not be associated with any cycles of accreditations.
The accreditation fee for PAC will 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 from date of result declaration.
A two-member team will visit colleges to assess their standards. The peer team will comprise 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 has to mandatorily secure a minimum score of 15 out of 40 for getting provisional accreditation.
Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV) rector Ashok Sharma said that colleges unwilling to go for “graded accreditation” have a good chance of getting provisional accreditation from NAAC.
