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An Overview

The NATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND ACCREDITATION COUNCIL (NAAC) is an autonomous body established by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of India to assess and accredit institutions of higher education in the country. It is an outcome of the recommendations of the National Policy in Education (1986) which laid special emphasis on upholding the quality of higher education in India. To address the issues of quality, the National Policy on Education (1986) and the Plan of Action (POA-1992) advocated the establishment of an independent national accreditation body. Consequently, the NAAC was established in 1994 with its headquarters at Bangalore.

Quality Assurance Cell of Karnataka

National Assessment and Accreditation Council has a mandate to access and accredit higher education institutions in the country. It further facilitates enhancement of quality in teaching and research, stimulates academic environment for a attaining of academic ives. Further in the process of assessment, institutions are encouraged to introspect into their functioning and evaluate themselves and promote accountability in higher education. Thus it takes on a gamut of challenges in the quality assurance in higher education. Appropriate policy measures needs to be made at the institutional level, State government level, UGC and Central government level to improve the quality of higher education.

To facilitate The Action Plan formulated by NAAC, for Assessment, Accreditation and Quality up gradation of the College in the State of Karnataka, a government order was issued (Govt. Order NO..ED 168 URC 2002,Dt: 24-10-2002.)

The Quality Assurance Cell (QAC) working directly under the Commissioner for Collegiate Education to monitor the progress of accreditation process, was established in April 2002 and later after the signing with MOU with the NAAC in November 2002 the QAC was strengthened by the NAAC.

As a result of this Karnataka achieved maximum number of accreditation in south India and occupies 2nd place in India in terms of number of institutions accredited. Regarding the current quality status that accreditation was voluntary as a result of this many colleges are out of the purview of accreditation. Now UGC has made accreditation mandatory. Institutions eligible for funding under 12B of UGC or RUSA would require to be accredited or have applied for accreditation.

The following activities were organized by the QAC Karnataka to facilitate accreditation process.

1. Awareness Workshops on accreditation
2. Post accreditation process workshops
3. Capacity building workshops
4. he QAC is also actively involved in implimentation of a Road Map for TQM in Higher Education. in Karnataka.
5. Coordinating Training of teacher as facilitators in HRD
6. Training of Govt. College IQAC Coordinaters