Prof Najma Akhtar stressed the need for developing a quality consciousness and importance of accreditation for higher institutions, at the webinar which was a big draw with 1,236 registrations
Clarion India
NEW DELHI — Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) jointly organised a webinar on Tuesday on ‘Assessment and Accreditation Procees’ which turned out to be a big draw.
The webinar was inaugurated by Prof Najma Akhtar, Vice Chancellor, JMI and attended by about a thousand participants from institutions across the country. The webinar received 1,236 registrations but only about a thousand could be accommodated due to technical constraints, said the university.
The NAAC team was led by Dr. K. Rama, Adviser, and Dr. Devender Kawday, Deputy Adviser,NAAC. Dr. Shyam Singh Inda, and Dr. Vinita Sahu, Assistant Adviser, NAAC were the experts for the webinar.
The profile of participants was quite diverse, with over 450 Assistant Professors, 100+ Associate Professors, 100+ Professors, about 30 Principals and other officials. This included 417 participants from colleges which are priority areas for NAAC for bringing them into the accreditation process. About 150 JMI faculty members also registered for the webinar.
In her inaugural address, Prof Najma Akhtar stressed the need for developing a quality consciousness and importance of accreditation for higher institutions. She said, “Accreditation status of an institution is a key indicator that reflects upon its overall quality and reputation. It also helps in building perception about the institute.”
Prof. Akhtar lauded the role of NAAC in establishing standards for quality and accreditation for a diverse and large educational system of India in spite of so many challenges. “An institution takes years of sustained efforts to become a benchmark for quality education”, she added.
Quality in Education is a continuous and cyclic process, pointed out Prof. Akhtar. If an institution improves its quality standards, the educational outcomes become better and this further translates into improvement of future students’ intake. “This also has a bearing on resource generation from projects and funding agencies etc. The challenge before us is to not only maintain the quality cycle but to turn it into an increasing spiral. Then only the pursuit of quality would be fulfilled”, She further added.
Prof. Akhtar suggested that in order to fuel quality pursuit, institutions showing consistent progress in accreditation and rankings should be encouraged by the government, and large institutions who secure a certain level from the accreditation agency may be granted necessary financial and manpower support to set up a permanent IQAC department in these institutions.
“This will ensure that the pursuit of maintaining Quality and standards in higher education becomes a continuous and sustainable process”, she suggested.
Dr. K. Rama, Adviser, NAAC introduced the program to the participants and said that NAAC had a mandate to ensure quality assurance as an integral part of the functioning of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). “Though quality education is of paramount importance, access and equity of quality education are also very important”, said Dr. Rama.
She said that the institutions should adhere to these principles while following the vision of the institute. According to Dr. Rama, NAAC has been continuously improving its methodology for Assessment and Accreditation and the new assessment and accreditation framework is in tune with local, regional and global developments and challenges in higher education.
Dr Rama praised the efforts of the JMI administration which have led to achievement of overall educational excellence by the university. She asked participants to encourage adoption of best practices from other institutions.
Dr. Devender Kawday, Deputy Adviser, NAAC gave a detailed presentation on NAAC’s Assessment and Accreditation process and IIQA. He highlighted about the core values, vision, and mission and how NAAC facilitates the HEI to establish SOPs and climb the quality ladder. He further elaborated about the seven criterions, key indicators and the subsequent metric involved in the accreditation process.
Dr. Shyam Singh Inda, Asst Adviser, discussed the issues related to Self-Study Report and Student Satisfaction Survey. He explained the process of preparation of the self-study report and importance of filling of SSR. He explained about the various components involved in SSR and types of questions asked in SSR citing examples.
Dr. Vinita Sahu, Asst Adviser, in her presentation explained about Data Verification and Validation (DVV) process, standard operating procedures for DVV in ascertaining and validating the authenticity of submitted data and corresponding award of points to quantitative metrics.
She stressed on the importance of truthful submission and representation of all the required data for the claim made by HEI. She further shared the modalities of Peer Team visit management on-site visit and submission of Annual Quality Assurance report.
At the end of the session, a question-and-answer session was held which was moderated by Dr Rama, where a number of doubts of the participants were cleared.