1Assistant Registrar, General Administration, Department of Public Administration, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, Gujarat, India
2Professor, Department of Public Administration, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, Gujarat, India
*(Corresponding author) email id: heeteshv@gmail.com
Quality is a concept; it's a philosophy; it's a journey; it's also what we practice. We at NAAC strive to create awareness and understanding of quality, and quality assurance in higher education as a necessary ingredient to national development (Prasad, 2007; Former Director, NAAC).
This paper describes the role of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) towards quality assurance and accreditation of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the context of rapid growth of HEIs and changing scenario of higher education of India. The objective of the NAAC accreditation process is to develop a quality conscious system for HEIs where excellence, relevance to market needs and participation by all stakeholders are ensured. After passing from various phases, NAAC has now completed more than 20 years of its establishment and accredited more than 9,278 HEIs including re-accredited institutions. However, the figure of accredited HEIs is not satisfactory looking to the existence of total HEIs in the country. NAAC has, so far, accredited 256 universities and 6,281 colleges which is 34% of the total universities and 18% of the total colleges of the country as on 31 March 2016. As the University Grants Commission and the Ministry of Human Resource Development have mandated that all HEIs should undergo the process of assessment and accreditation, there would be a tremendous pressure on NAAC to accredit all HEIs of the country. There are many challenges before the NAAC to ensure 100% accreditation of HEIs of the country. However, through its consistent and conscious efforts, NAAC has assumed the role of a quality facilitator in spite of extreme hardship. The paper attempts to theoretically conceptualise the role of NAAC in present context of higher education.
Quality, NAAC, Accreditation, HEIs, A&A, QA, NKC, HEIs = higher education institutions, NAAC = National Assessment and Accreditation Council, A&A = assessment and accreditation, SLQACC = State-Level Quality Assurance Coordination Committee, SQAC = State Quality Assurance Cell, IQAC = Internal Quality Assurance Cell, MHRD = Ministry of Human Resource Development, UGC = University Grants Commission, IRAHE = Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education, AICTE = All India Council for Technical Education, NKC = National Knowledge Commission, QA = Quality Assurance
