Colleges and universities that have completed even one academic year will be eligible to seek interim accreditation under a new set of rules issued by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). The move is intended to "widen the horizon of accreditation," according to the guidelines.
Until today, NAAC accreditation was only available to higher education institutions that were at least six years old or had graduated at least two batches of students.
Because of these requirements and the fact that few schools seek assessment, NAAC grading is only available to a small percentage of the country's 51,000 colleges, universities, and freestanding institutes.
The NAAC, a self-governing body established under the UGC Act, assesses higher education institutions on a variety of factors, including governance, teaching and learning, research, infrastructure, and financial health, among others. The NAAC assigns grades to colleges based on these criteria, ranging from A++ to C. D indicates that the institution is not accredited.
According to official data, the NAAC has given 13,971 accreditations that are valid for five years as of October 26, 2021. Only 12 universities and 64 colleges have been graded four times by the NAAC, with a five-year hiatus between each assessment.
Provisional accreditation for colleges (PAC) is basically focused on determining the readiness of institutions for final NAAC accreditation under the new rules.
According to the guideline, institutions that apply for the PAC process will receive feedback on the areas they need to improve in order to attain "the threshold level of quality."
The PAC will be valid for two years and institutions will only be able to obtain it once.
On February 23, UGC chair M Jagadesh Kumar is scheduled to speak in a webcast about the guidelines. Colleges were notified of the rules on January 23.
Accreditation is a significant focus of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The National Accreditation Council is envisioned as a "meta-accrediting body."
According to the NEP, “Through a suitable system of graded accreditation and graded autonomy, and in a phased manner over a period of 15 years, all Higher Education Institutes in India will aim to become independent self-governing institutions pursuing innovation and excellence.”