India now a Permanent Signatory to Washington Accord Global Employment, Increases for Indians

In a major achievement, India has now become a permanent Signatory to Washington Accord. This will substantially multiply the global employment opportunities for Indian technical & engineering graduates, says Union Minster of Human Resource Development.

On 13 June 2014, India has joined a select group of 17 countries who are permanent signatories of the Washington Accord (WA) during a meeting of the International Engineering Alliance of WA member countries. The meeting was held in Wellington, New Zealand during which India had been given the signatory status with effect from today.

Union HRD Minister, Smt Smriti Zubin Irani congratulated the officials of the Ministry as well as the members of National Board of Accreditation, and said that this achievement will ensure highest quality assurance standards to be implemented in our technical and engineering programmes and provide global mobility to our engineering graduates.

Now, the Indian technical & engineering graduates would get employment in other countries more substantially as well as they can pursue technical education more conveniently.

Indian technical & engineering degrees, which have been so accredited, would have substantial international equivalence of their achievement levels across the signatory nations. This will substantially enhance their employment opportunities for Indian graduates around the world, said Irani.

Washington Accord is an international agreement amongst prominent nations of the World, with the charter of promoting mobility and quality assurance of engineers across international boundaries. The charter requires that nations set up suitable accreditation standards, which would ensure a minimum quality of attainment for their engineering graduates.

The Washington Accord was signed by the National Board of Accreditation, India, an accrediting body with the mandate for accreditation of engineering and other technical programs at all levels in the country and making technical education outcome based.

In December 2013 and January 2014, the International Engineering Alliance (IEA), Secretariat of the Washington Accord, sent a Review Team to carry out a comprehensive review and audit of NBA accreditation systems and practices. The Review team submitted its report in March 2014.