The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) Chairperson KK Agarwal, speaking at the Education Technology Trends in India – Vision 2025, a symposium organised in hybrid mode by the Indian Chamber of Commer (ICC) has stated that there is a need for a single National Accreditation Committee for the assessment and accreditation of higher education establishments.
Agarwal went on to emphasise how less than 20% of the existing 50,000 institutions receive accreditation each year.
The UGC (University Grants Commission) had put certain guidelines in place regarding the accreditation of HEIs (Higher Education Institutions) across the country - according to which, all such institutions must be assessed and accredited. Presently, there are a number of accreditation boards and councils, the most important ones being, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and Distance Education Bureau (DEB), in addition to various professional councils. However, it is generally found that these councils focus on specific subject areas, and the HEIs providing education in the less popular areas of study remain unaccredited.
According to Agarwal, this situation is up for change and his proposed solution was to set up a single regulating authority, which can potentially impact NIRF rankings.
Agarwal noted that 8 of the top 10 universities, according to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) data, are engineering colleges, which demonstrated the disparity. He noted that during the past 30 years, engineering education has received a lot of attention but science and technology have been neglected, which has had an impact on higher education.
Every institution should be subject to the accreditation process, which also takes other development-related aspects into account, according to Agarwal. “Only one regulatory body will have certain norms for accredited higher education institutions,” he said.
Others speaking at the event also emphasised the blended learning approach, which has become popular since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak.
Speaking at the symposium, which was organised to discuss the future outlook for Education in India, in particular the contribution of Ed-tech and hybrid modes of study, Chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Dr Anil D. Sahasrabude commented, “Educational technology has helped Indian students achieve various positive changes in a short period of time that were previously unimaginable. But here, education should be paramount to help students be skills-oriented, knowledge-oriented and market-ready.”