GUWAHATI: The Assam government has linked state-level development grant to Higher Educational Institutions (HEI) with National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation status with effect from August 2019.
This has been stated in an action plan approved by the state higher education department recently. The purpose is to improve the overall performance of all the HEIs of the state.
According to the action plan, an HEI of the state will be eligible to receive state-level development grant provided it has valid NAAC accreditation, reports The Telegraph.
Without NAAC accreditation, an HEI will get grant only if it has submitted institutional information for quality assessment to the NAAC for the next cycle of accreditation or if it is newly established.
The action plan has been prepared because of poor performance of HEIs in NAAC assessment. Currently, only one-third of the public HEIs in Assam have valid NAAC accreditation.
Also, there aren’t any A++ or A+ or equivalent HEIs in Assam and the participation of private HEIs is almost non-existent. The action plan states that the number of A grade HEIs in Assam is only 16.
The primary aim is to maximise the number of HEIs to have NAAC accreditation and also work for development of the already NAAC accredited HEIs.
The state –level Quality Assurance Cell will also be revamped as per proposal made by the directorate of higher education.
The higher education department has also realized that many of the HEIs in the state are yet to be fully acquainted with the revised Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based framework of assessment and accreditation and thus are lagging behind.
The department has decided to organize a number of capacity-building exercises across the state.
Rewards will be given to those institutes securing A grade or above in the NAAC accreditation process.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has made assessment and accreditation mandatory for all HEIs.