NAAC grading: Temporary changes in procedure announced

New Delhi: The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which carries out the grading of colleges in the country, has announced temporary changes in its inspection procedure.

Incidentally, NAAC chairman Bhushan Patwardhan had resigned recently while allegations were raised over discrepancies in the grading process.

The new changes brought in by the temporary chairman Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe are:

Satisfaction survey: Phone numbers of students taking part in the satisfaction survey have to be submitted in advance to NAAC by the colleges. These students have to take part in the survey by logging in to the website with an OTP received in their mobile.

Experts’ panel: The panel of experts carrying out the inspection will be selected through a computerized system.

Database: Only one person will have access to the information provided by the institutions to the database. Incidentally, former chairman Patwardhan had alleged that all the experts in the panel were able to change the data.

DVD: All data verification and validation (DVD) work would be completed by an external agency. If there is more than 30% deviation between the report of the experts’ panel and the results of the DVD, a scrutiny will be conducted into the data provided by the institution.

Plagiarism check: This is intended to prevent institutions from seeking external help to prepare their reports.

New system soon

Meanwhile, NAAC authorities said that these measures were only of a temporary nature and that a new accreditation system will be in place soon. A committee headed by former chairman of the ISRO Dr K Radhakrishnan is engaged in this task, they added.