NAAC to seek students’ views on college facilities

Mumbai: In a bid to make accreditation of colleges, universities and institutions more stringent, the National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) has decided to rope in college students to give their opinion about facilities in their institution in order to ascertain the veracity of the information provided by the institution during the assessment. 

The council will send emails to random students from the institution and ask them for feedback on various criteria. The initiative is part of the new measures introduced by NAAC which includes making the entire process of accreditation and assessment based on Information and Communication Technology (ICT). 

According to sources from NAAC, while in the past peer teams assigned by NAAC did a physical assessment of the various criteria during their visit to the institutions, the ICT module while retaining the visits has made additions that are aimed at reducing the shortcomings. NAAC advisor Dr Jagannath Patil who was elected as president of the Global Quality Network INQAAHE in 2015-16  mooted the plan. 

Dr M S Kurhade, principal of DTSS College, Malad and a key member of the Association of Non Government colleges (ANGC) who was part of the AOP said, “The initiative is welcome as apart from ICT, it also involves students – past and present to ascertain the veracity of the information provided by the institutions.”