TAAL IMI IDARON K I DARJABANDI

ACCREDITAT ION OF

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

MUJIB UDDIN SIDDIQUIDeputy Mineral

economist( Intelligence)Indian Bureau of Mines

ACADEMIC GRADING Academic grading in India is based on a percentage

system. Generally, at the school level percentages of 80-90 are

considered excellent while above 90 is exceptional. At the university level however percentages between

69-79 are considered excellent and are quite difficult to obtain.

The direct comparison of the percentage of marks is difficult between universities . Indeed,

some requiring an 85% plus for the award of Distinction while others would award Distinction at above of 70%.

60% may be the minimum passing mark some may have a passing mark of 45%.

PROVIDES U.S. GRADE POINT EQUIVALENT FOR PERCENTAGES SCORED IN INDIAN UNIVERSITIES.

[6]

PercentageClassification/

DivisionU.S. Grade Point

EquivalentU.S. Grade Equivalent

70% and aboveDistinction / Outstanding

4.0 A

60% and above but below 70%

First class 3.5 - 3.99 A

50% and above but below 60%

Second Class 2.5 - 3.49 B+/B

40% and above but below 50%

Pass Class 1.5 - 2.49 C+/C

Below 40% Fail 0 - 1.49 F

CREATING A GRADING MECHANISM FOR INDIAN UNIVERSITIES FROM SCRATCH, PARTICULARLY IN A LARGE, COMPLEX, ANDDISORGANISED SYSTEM,

IS A MASSIVE CHALLENGE

College and University Rankings

Ranking of institutions in higher education ordered by various combinations of various factors.

Rankings have most often been conducted by magazines, newspapers, websites, governments, or academics.

In addition to ranking entire institutions, organizations perform rankings of specific programs, departments, and schools.

Various rankings consider combinations of measures of wealth, research excellence and/or influence, selectivity, student options, eventual success, demographics, and other criteria.

There are no known college rankings of student academic quality. Some rankings evaluate institutions within a single country, while

others assess institutions worldwide. The subject has produced much debate about rankings usefulness

and accuracy. The expanding diversity in rating methodologies and

accompanying criticisms of each indicate the lack of consensus in the field.

ACADEMIC RANKING OF WORLD UNIVERSITIES

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and now maintained by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, has provided annual global rankings of universities since 2003, making it the earliest of its kind.

The ranking is funded by the Chinese government and its initial purpose was to measure the gap between Chinese and "world class" universities.

ARWU rankings have been cited by The Economist magazine. It has been lauded for being "consistent and transparent" based on an article.

The education ministers of France, Norway and Denmark traveled to China to discuss and find ways to improve their rankings.

ACADEMIC RANKING OF WORLD UNIVERSITIES

ARWU does not rely on surveys and school submissions.

Among other criteria, ARWU includes the number of articles published by Nature or Science and the number of Nobel Prize winners and Fields Medalists (mathematics).

Harvard and Stanford have topped the ranking for years.

One of the primary criticisms of ARWU's methodology is that it is biased towards the natural sciences and English language science journals over other subjects. Moreover, the ARWU is known for "relying solely on research indicators", and "the ranking is heavily weighted toward institutions whose faculty or alumni have won Nobel Prizes": it does not measure "the quality of teaching or the quality of humanities.”

CENTER FOR WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS

The Saudi Arabia-based consulting organization has published yearly rankings of world universities since 2012.

Rankings are based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, number of publications, number of publications in high-quality journals, citations, scientific impact and number of patents.

INDIA DOESN'T FIGURE IN WORLD TOP-100 UNIVERSITIES (SEP 17, 2010)

India is nowhere in the world university rankings. As per the three rankings — Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Academic Ranking of World Universities compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and QS World University Rankings

US dominates all the three rankings, the QS rankings have China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Israel, Taiwan and even Thailand ahead of India with IIT-Bombay in the 187th position.

In the other two rankings, (Times Higher Education World University Rankings and Academic Ranking of World Universities) India finds no place in the top 200, but Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singaporeand Turkey bag decent places in between the two rankings. 

B K Mathur, dean, planning and co-ordination, IIT Kharagpur, however, dismisses the world university rankings as a subject for "coffee table discussions"

ACADEMIC RANKING IN INDIA

Magazines such as Youth Incorporated, India Today, Outlook, Mint, The Week, Dataquest and EFY conduct Annual rankings for the major disciplines.

India University Rankings Indian Engineering College Rankings Indian Law School Rankings etc.

INDIA TODAY RANKING PARAMETERS

Reputation Academic Input Student Care Infrastructure Placement Perceptual Rank Factual Rank

CAREERS360 LAW COLLEGES RANKING METHODOLOGY

Parameters and Weightages Methodology Score Inclusions

INPUT

Student Quality

100 Diversity (gender, region); Entrance test score/ cut-off mark

Faculty Quality & Engagement

50 PhD faculty, teaching & legal domain experience

PROCESS

Living 50 Residential campus; student facilities

Teaching Quality

50 Accreditation/recognition; student to faculty ratio; course up-dation, electives etc.

Learning 25 Moot courts, workshops and key activities

OUTPUT

Research Output 125 Publication count scaled against authors; citation et al

Alumni; Goodwill

100 Alumni status; industry/society interface

The NATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND ACCREDITATION COUNCIL (NAAC) is an autonomous body established by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of India to assess and accredit institutions of higher education in the country. It is an outcome of the recommendations of the National Policy in Education (1986) which laid special emphasis on upholding the quality of higher education in India.

WHY ACCREDITATION?

Definition: The act of granting credit or recognition (especially with respect to educational institution that

maintains suitable standards)

Education plays a vital role in the development of any nation. Therefore, there is a premium on both quantity (increased access) and quality (relevance and excellence of academic programmes offered) of higher education.

The NAAC has been set up to facilitate the volunteering institutions to assess their performance vis-a-vis set parameters through introspection and a process that provides space for participation of the institution.

BENEFITS OF ACCREDITATION

Accreditation facilitates

• institution to know its strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities through an informed review process.

• identification of internal areas of planning and resource allocation

• collegiality on the campus.

• funding agencies look for objective data for performance funding.

• institutions to initiate innovative and modern methods of pedagogy.

• new sense of direction and identity for institutions.

• the society look for reliable information on quality education offered.

• employers look for reliable information on the quality of education offered to the prospective recruits.

• intra and inter-institutional interactions.

CRITERIA FOR ASSESSMENT

NAAC has identified the following seven criteria to serve as the basis of its assessment procedures:

• Curricular Aspects • Teaching-Learning and Evaluation • Research, Consultancy and Extension • Infrastructure and Learning Resources • Student Support and Progression • Governance, Leadership and Management • Innovations and Best Practices

KEY ASPECTS

The Seven Criteria is further divided into "Key Aspects”. Certain important Assessment Indicators are identified under the Key Aspects and the Seven Criteria which encompasses them, as probes or leads for the Peer Team members to capture the micro-level quality parameters. These indicators facilitate the computing of the Key Aspect-wise Grade Points (KA-GPS) and the Criterion-wise Grade Point Averages (CR-GPAs) in order to arrive at the quality status of the institution.

WEIGHTAGES

The NAAC has categorized the Higher Educational Institutions into three major types (University, Autonomous College, and Affiliated/Constituent College) and assigned different weightages to these criteria under different key aspects based on the functioning and organizational focus of the three types of (Higher Education Institutions)HEIs.

The criterion-wise differential weightages for the three types of HEIs are:

Curricular Aspects 150 (U) 150 (Au) 100 (Aff) Teaching-learning and Evaluation 200 (U) 300 (Au) 350 (Aff) Research, Consultancy and Extension 250 (U) 150 (Au) 150 (Aff) Infrastructure and Learning Resources 100 (U) 100 (Au) 100 (Aff) Student Support and Progression 100 (U) 100 (Au) 100 (Aff) Governance, Leadership and Management 100 (U) 100 (Au) 100 (Aff) Innovations and Best Practices 100 (U) 100 (Au) 100 (Aff)

GRADING

Institutions are graded for each Key Aspect under four categories, viz. A, B, C and D, denoting Very good, Good, Satisfactory and Unsatisfactory levels respectively.

The summated score for all the Key Aspects under a Criterion is then calculated with the appropriate weightage applied to it and the GPA is worked out for the Criterion.

The Cumulative GPA (CGPA), which gives the final Assessment Outcome, is then calculated from the seven GPAs pertaining to the seven criteria, after applying the prescribed weightage to each Criterion.

ADVANTAGES OF CGPA

• Letter grades converted to Numerical Grade Points (overall score in Cumulative Grade Point Average)

• Qualitative measurements converted to grade points • Wider scope for normalizing the scores • Extreme biases (if any) could be minimized • A one point difference between two letter grades, with 50 or 100

points assigned between two successive letter grades results in appreciable fine-tuning of the process.

• Relative evaluation would be more exact, due to a reduction in variations and standard deviations

• Inter-Peer Team variations are substantially reduced • With scare scope for adjustment at any stage, the peer team

judgment would be more accurate

Range of institutional Cumulative Grade Point

Average (CGPA)Letter Grade

PerformanceDescriptor

3.01 - 4.00 A Very Good(Accredited)

2.01 - 3.00 B Good(Accredited)

1.51 - 2.00 C Satisfactory(Accredited)

<= 1.50 D Unsatisfactory(Not accredited)

ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY GETS ‘A’ GRADE BY NATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND ACCREDITATION COUNCIL (NAAC) WITH 3.5 CUMULATIVE GRADE POINT

AVERAGE (CGPA).

ASSESSMENT AND ACCREDITATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Criteria and Key Aspects for Assessment

1. Curricular Aspects

2. Teaching-Learning and Evaluation

3. Research, Consultancy and Extension

4. Infrastructure and Learning Resources

5. Student Support and Progression

6. Governance, Leadership and Management

7. Innovations and Best Practices

CRITERION I - CURRICULAR ASPECTS:

KEY ASPECTS Curriculum Design and Development Curriculum Planning and Implementation Academic flexibility Curriculum Enrichment Feedback System

CRITERION II - TEACHING-LEARNING AND EVALUATION:

KEY ASPECTS Student Enrolment and Profile   Catering to Student Diversity   Teaching-Learning Process   Teacher Quality   Evaluation Process and Reforms   Student Performance and Learning Outcomes

CRITERION III - RESEARCH, CONSULTANCY AND EXTENSION:

KEY ASPECTS Promotion of Research   Resource Mobilization for Research   Research Facilities   Research Publications and Awards   Consultancy   Extension Activities and Institutional Social

Responsibility   Collaborations

CRITERION IV - INFRASTRUCTURE AND LEARNING RESOURCES:

KEY ASPECTS

Physical Facilities   Library as a Learning Resource   IT Infrastructure   Maintenance of Campus Facilities

CRITERION V - STUDENT SUPPORT AND PROGRESSION:

KEY ASPECTS Student Mentoring and Support  Student Progression   Student Participation and Activities

CRITERION VI - GOVERNANCE, LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT :

KEY ASPECTS Institutional Vision and Leadership   Strategy Development and Deployment   Faculty Empowerment Strategies   Financial Management and Resource Mobilization

  Internal Quality Assurance System (IQAS)

CRITERION VII - INNOVATIONS AND BEST PRACTICES:

KEY ASPECTS Environment Consciousness   Innovations   Best Practices

CONCLUSION

The idea of rankings is a good one. Rankings will stimulate the further professionalization of

Indian academe. Rankings will create a sense of competitiveness in the

system; It will help build a differentiated academic system with a few

internationally recognised research-intensive universities and a much larger number of institutions that will focus mainly on teaching.

But implementation will not be easy. Those involved must be realistic about what is involved,

what the costs will be, and how much time and energy will be required

KHWAB INKA

AUR TABIR