In order to maintain academic quality, National Accreditation Regulatory Authority (NARA) for Higher Educational Institutions Bill 2010 seeks to make it mandatory for every higher educational institution (other than institutions engaged in agricultural education) to be accredited by an independent accreditation agency.<\/p>\n
Highlights of the bill: (SUB HEAD)
\nThe Bill makes it mandatory for every higher educational institution (other than agricultural institutions) and every programme conducted by it to get accredited by an accreditation agency in order to certify academic quality.<\/p>\n
Assessment of such accreditation has to be made before the institution starts the process of admission to such programmes. Existing educational institutions have to get their accreditation within three years (five years for medical institutions).<\/p>\n
The Bill establishes a National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Education, which shall register and monitor accreditation agencies. These accreditation agencies shall accredit every higher educational institution based on a specified procedure and fees.<\/p>\n
An accreditation agency has to be a non-profit organization, which is controlled by the central or state government.<\/p>\n
Key issues and analysis (Sub head)
\nThe Bill, which allows only government controlled agencies to accredit educational institutions, may dilute the objective of creating a healthy competitive environment for quality rating of educational institutions. Countries such as the US, UK and Germany allow both public and private entities to accredit institutions.<\/p>\n
Regulatory bodies are required when the private sector is allowed to provide certain goods and services. Under the Bill, private players cannot register as accreditation agencies. So a regulatory authority for registering agencies may be redundant.<\/p>\n
The Bill allows an institution to appeal to NARA for modification of a rating given by an accreditation agency. This implies that NARA would have to perform the role of an accreditation agency; it may not have the competence to do so.<\/p>\n
Accreditation agencies are required to help institutes to improve their quality and may be penalized for not performing this duty. This may result in conflict of interest. Downgrading of an institution may be seen as admission of failure to improve quality by an agency. As this may invite penalty, agencies may be wary of downgrading institutions.<\/p>\n
Presently, higher educational institutions are accredited by National Assessment and Accreditation Council and the National Board of Accreditation. These are autonomous bodies set up by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), respectively. Accreditation is voluntary. Currently, about one-fifth of the colleges and less than one-third of all universities are accredited. <\/p>\n
Two recent committees on higher education namely the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) and the Yash Pal Committee recommended a system of accreditation. The Bill seeks to (a) make accreditation mandatory; (b) ensure that both institutions and programmes get accredited; and (c) provide accreditation by licensed accreditation agencies, which shall be overseen by the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Education. \u201cAccreditation\u201d is defined as the process of benchmarking of academic quality of a higher education institution by an accreditation agency. The benchmarks of quality shall be determined by a statutory authority such as UGC or AICTE. \u201cAcademic quality\u201d means the quality of teaching, learning and research. It includes infrastructure, human resources, curricula, admission procedure and governance structure.<\/p>\n
Every higher educational institution (except agricultural education which is a State subject) and every programme conducted by it has to be accredited by an accreditation agency. The accreditation has to be obtained before the institution starts the process of admission to such programmes. Existing educational institutions have to get their accreditation within three years (five years for medical institutions).<\/p>\n
The central government may exempt any class of higher educational institution from the provisions of this law.<\/p>\n
The Bill establishes a National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Education, which shall register and monitor accreditation agencies. These accreditation agencies shall accredit every higher educational institution based on a specified procedure and fees. In order to maintain academic quality, National Accreditation Regulatory Authority (NARA) for Higher Educational Institutions Bill 2010 seeks to make it mandatory for every higher educational institution (other than institutions engaged in agricultural education) to be accredited by an independent accreditation agency. Highlights of the bill: (SUB HEAD) The Bill makes it mandatory for every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[679],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nagaland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nContributed by Dr. R. K. Behera.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"