NAAC Accreditation Assessments Minus Physical Visits

 

The assessment for accreditation by NAAC is all set to switch to the new format with a binary framework. One key difference is that it will be data driven exercise, without physical visits. There are a lot of changes being brought in through the new format which moves into an input-process-outcome framework, with expected and necessary emphasis laid on outcomes. With input being primarily in the quantitative form, the old ways of excessively descriptive presentations with narratives that help no one will be eliminated. One recent SSR I had to go through had each descriptive part beginning with a definition of the key indicator, educating the assessor perhaps about what exactly the NAAC meant by it, rather than simply keying in what is it that the college has achieved during the assessment period. The new format will put paid to it.

 

 But I would like to draw the focus to the emphasis on data driven approach, doing away with the physical visits. There could be many reasons why the physical visits by the assessors, Peer Team Members, are taken off the procedure, including the convenience element and the occasional complains about their behaviour or competence. The whole process will be surely lightened for the assessing body with the effort of planning, travel and related aspects now being out of the picture. A huge segment of the process will be removed and what some academics consider the fat will be cut off. 

The physical visits represented a challenging part of the NAAC process for the HEIs with the task of finding the right ones for the job, training them and making sure that they did the work assigned with integrity, with quality being the only string attached. But the physical visits had its advantages too. For many of us who were in the leadership roles the (slightly scary) Peer Team Visits (PTVs) afforded opportunity to professionally arm twist the institutions ownership to invest in infrastructure, fine-tune the processes, and in all, to make them seriously involve in the institutions growth at multiple levels.  Often many of the long pending demands related to the infrastructure will be met under the NAAC threat. A look around will convince us all how big a change this has brought about in the colleges around us. 

The other aspect is the preparations which the whole institution makes for the  presentation of what they have achieved during the assessment period. Though many of the faculty members and dept heads may find it worrisome and welcome the fact that this is taken off now, it is a practice that contributed heavily to how the dept/college looked at itself. The fact that there is a serious stock taking looming ahead made them get ready for the same, with all members contributing to it in one way or other. Many of the dept heads prepared long and hard for the presentation. For many of them this was the only genuinely serious presentation they ever did in their career. The technical, skill-wise and academic preparation and learning this called for did contribute a lot to the professional development of the faculty members and the institutions leadership too. The heads of the institution are rarely given the task of representing the institution at the high level, defending the achievements of the HEI before an august body. This plugged that gap.

This not only put pressure but yielded results too.  The other unseen takeaway of the exercise was the fact that both the institutional leadership, the leaderships above that level, the emerging young leadership too were aware of these responsibilities. By extension, in many an HEIs, the Institution's ownership began to play more serious attention to picking and training the right kind of leadership who will be capable of delivering the goods. This awareness has rubbed on the other members of the academia who genuinely look for quality and did wake up to the demands put out by the PTVs. Rather than wake up to it at the end the four year period, many have slowly begun to keep this once in four years happening as a constant point of assessment for them. This is now about to become part of the past, with data driven exercise. 

A high quality visit which puts the whole of the institution on alert, tests the capability of all to perform to their highest potential once in four years is not a bad idea at all. A day on which the whole of administrative procedures, academic activities, infrastructural readiness and policy implementation will be tested is to be welcomed once in a while though it is important that those who come visiting are of the right capability to observe, reflect, comment and assess without losing the camaraderie of Peers. 

I have already come across a responsible person from the Management Committee of an HEI who felt that not much seriousness need now be attached to the accreditation part as it is going to be binary and without physical visit. He was even of the opinion that the institutions can now save that part of the expense and needn't be worried much about the competency of the person who leads the institution! This is one way the data driven approach may be taken advantage of by those at the helm of affairs. There are many other ways in which the new system may be exploited with borrowed facilities and mobile infrastructure. I do admit that a bit of this may already be happening but the scale is going to grow soon. 

There could be a good number of arguments in favour of the all-data approach but all those can't be fully be because of the evils of the physical visits. The percentage of institutions which come forward to be accredited will certainly increase as the process is apparently simplified and the part which creates the most tense moments is removed - the physical visit. But it remains to be seen how, in the long run, this will impact the quality quotient and, as the whole accreditation process is about that.  A bunch of institutions which have developed a strong spirit of institutional integrity and have learnt to take ownership will surely never feel the difference as accreditation exercises are assessments these HEIs are always prepared for - virtual or physical. But for many other HEIs, it will be a different story. 

Babu. P. K., Ph D.