Indian Degrees to Receive International Recognition

The Indian degrees are to receive a global recognition after it attains full-fledged membership status of the Washington Accord this year by June.

Ashok Thakur, secretary of higher education told that measures are being taken to establish National Accreditation Regulatory Authority (NARA), which will also add to the India’s efforts to lift education quality and reach at par with international standards.

Once the Indian degrees become the part of Washington Accord, the Indian engineers will be able to get employed in other countries more substantially as well as they will be able to pursue technical education more conveniently, said Thakur.

Since 2007 till date, India has remained a provisional member of Washington Accord and is certain to acquire the full-fledged status before June, during the due meeting of the body, Thakur informed.

The Accord is an international agreement signed in 1989 among bodies responsible for accrediting and authorizing engineering degree programmes. Currently, 16 countries have participated in it.

2 members were deputed by the Washington Accord for India to align its accreditation norms with the best international practices, as told by Thakur.

NARA, is an autonomous body that constitute experts to identify agencies for accrediting institutes. At present National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and National Board of Accreditation (NBA).provides accreditation in the nation.  For India, UGC will shortly set up the body soon, Thakur said.

IITs have liberty to choose if they wish to get accredited by these bodies, however, they have instead chosen to go for an internal accreditation process.

The Washington Accord is an international accreditation agreement for professional engineering academic degrees, between the bodies responsible for accreditation in its signatory countries. Established in 1989, the signatories as of 2013 are Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong China, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.