College Courses to be Rated Soon

In a little while, the students will have the advantage to judge and evaluate not only the Universities/Colleges for admission purpose, but also the courses and programme those universities or institution offer, to be able to make a wise decision before pursuing.

The Union HRD Ministry is developing a system under which all individual programmes offered by colleges and universities will also be accredited and graded.

Under the Rashtriya Ucchatar Shikshan Abhiyan (RUSA), which is a national higher education mission aimed at providing monetary resources, all Indian institutes and universities now have to acquire ratings for their courses and programmes as well, besides institution’s own grading.

This infers that all of the individual courses offered in colleges and universities run across the country will also have a grading.

Furthermore, not only students are going to be at advantage while selecting the better college for themselves, also the potential recruiters will be able to pick the best pass-outs from each college.

The Director and Deputy Adviser of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), A N Rai Jagannath Patil, suggested that a multi-layered framework to be brought to check on quality assurance in higher education institutes. He also recommends NAAC to act as a nodal agency to accredit universities across the country. The state accrediting agencies under NAAC can then accredit colleges further. While, individual programmes can be accredited by subject councils/associations such as sociological society, Indian Commerce Association, etc.

For all these mentioned bodies NAAC can be a mentor as well as trainer, to assure their quality and work, addded Patil.

An HRD official informed that the ministry has not dismissed the idea of associating with third party agencies for the rating. HRD ministry has also written to a few councils such as National Council for Teacher Education, asking them to undergo evaluation of individual courses, in this case, B Ed and M Ed.