State-level grants in Assam linked to NAAC Accreditation

December 11: In order to revamp Higher Educational Institutions (HEI) in the state of Assam, the state Higher Education Department has linked state-level development grant with National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation status. This will come into with effect from August 2019. Without NAAC accreditation, an HEI will get grant only if it has submitted institutional information for quality assessment to the NAAC for the next cycle of accreditation or if it is newly established. Currently, only one-third of the public HEIs in Assam have valid NAAC accreditation.

The action plan states that the number of A grade HEIs in Assam is only 16. The main aim is to maximise the number of HEIs to have NAAC accreditation and also work for development of the already NAAC accredited HEIs. It also came to the forefront that many of the HEI are yet to be fully acquainted with the revised Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based framework. Those HEI which will get A grade or above in the NAAC accreditation process will be given rewards.