How Can Colleges Be Prepared For NAAC Peer Team Visit?

Do you want your college to get prepared for NAAC accreditation?

Are you expecting a NAAC peer team visit?

Thinking what are the necessary steps required to get accredited by NAAC?

Well, getting accredited from reputed agencies like NAAC offers an excellent opportunity to the Higher Ed Institutions (HEIs) to –

• Make a mark in the education sector
• Improve educational practices
• Gain the recognition of quality education providers

However, for being accredited successfully, HEIs have to hustle a lot in terms of managing the institutional data. The basic step towards getting accredited successfully is to prepare your institution for the NAAC peer team visit.

Preparing for the NAAC Peer Team Visit

The first thing institutions must do is find out whether they are providing quality education to students.

The prime factor that matters a lot to the NAAC peer team- “Quality Education”!

The NAAC peer team only visits the colleges that clear the minimum prequalification stage of DVV validation. They verify, assess, validate and score the institute with reference to the qualitative metrics given by higher education institutes in their self-study reports.

Understanding the NAAC Criteria & SSR Reports

To maintain the highest quality of education while ensuring best practices, institutions need to work in synchronization with the NAAC criteria & prepare Self-Study Report (SSR) Reports.

It will help them on the day of the NAAC peer team visit.

They must ensure that the reports being submitted are free from any kind of error.

Assembling, compiling, and managing heaps of data to prepare these assessment reports is quite a complex & mentally draining procedure for the faculty & staff members. HEIs need to ensure they have a precise record of all the following details -

• Student Details: Accurate record of current students & also, the students from the alumni batch including - their name, enrolment number, category, caste, course details, state, country, mobile number, etc need to be maintained in the institution's record along with the necessary documents verifying the same.
• Faculty: Faculty details consisting of their name, address, date of joining, qualifications, department, research papers, awards, etc needs to be present in the institutional record.

Preparing the Self Study Reports (SSR)

Preparing the NAAC SSR reports is one of the most crucial steps of the assessment and accreditation process. NAAC has issued specific guidelines & a set of rules which institutions must keep in mind while preparing the reports. The following are the key details that reports must include -

• Proof of contribution toward the core values
• Proof of building from the strengths recognized by the institution
• Actions taken/corrective measures applied to overcome the shortcomings identified by the institutions
• The efforts put from the institution's side toward the enhancement of quality
• The institution's future plans toward enhancement of quality of education

The institution must pay close attention to and strictly follow the guidelines and instructions of the formats provided by the NAAC during the preparation of SSR reports. The institution's head has a key role to play as regards achieving the goals of self-evaluation. A steering committee usually consisting of 4 to 6 members can also be created in order to analyze crucial data and thereby assist the head of the institution. This committee is usually responsible for collecting, analyzing, and compiling the data to prepare a comprehensive yet crisp SSR.

The steering committee's coordinator can also act as the institutional facilitator during the peer team visit. The institution must pay close attention to and strictly follow the guidelines and instructions of the formats provided by the NAAC during the preparation of SSR. The SSR must be submitted in a soft copy along with hard copies, 5 in case of affiliated or autonomous or constituent colleges and 8 in case of a university.

The SSR to be submitted must be in a particular format and structure and must include a cover letter, executive summary, and institution’s profile, criteria-wise report along with inputs from every department. The report must be concise, crisp, and clear instead of bulky, vague, or unclear.

Revised MODALITIES involved in Hybrid Peer Team Visit 2021

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), Bengaluru has revised certain modalities involved in the hybrid NAAC peer team visit.

1) Mode of NAAC Peer Team Visit

The concerned accreditation committee Coordinator/Officer will be responsible to finalize the mode of NAAC peer team visit (On-site Visit/Hybrid Peer Team Visit) depending on the availability of the NAAC Peer team members.

2) Mandatory Onsite Visits

As per the latest NAAC guidelines, the NAAC Chairperson and the Member-Coordinator need to conduct onsite/field NAAC peer team visits for colleges & universities on a mandatory basis. In case of a hybrid visit for a college, the third member of the NAAC peer team can opt for an online visit. It can be performed by login into the official NAAC portal. In the case of a university, (2 to 3) members out of (5 to 7) team strength are allowed to opt for an online visit. Options related to choosing the number of members are available on the official NAAC portal.

3) Undertaking Letter

The NAAC accreditation committee Officer/Coordinator needs to ensure that the college or university offers an undertaking letter regarding the onsite or hybrid visit for the NAAC Assessment and Accreditation process.

4) Official Link for the Online Meetings

IT members from the official NAAC accreditation committee team shall be creating a Webex online meeting platform and share login credentials for hybrid NAAC visits. The link will be confidential & be shared only with the NAAC peer committee team members. It shouldn’t be disclosed to anyone at any given point in time. The link will have the option to add a score to ensure a smooth transition.

5) Hybrid Peer Team Visit

The NAAC Officer/Coordinator needs to ensure successful completion of the hybrid peer team visit according to the rules & guidelines of NAAC.

6) Obtaining the Undertaking Letters

The NAAC accreditation committee officer should obtain undertaking letters from the respective higher education institutions before the NAAC peer team visit.

7) Providing Online Platform in Advance

The online platform that would offer the hybrid NAAC peer team visit should be allotted to the college & team members in advance.

8) Technical Issues or Glitches During Hybrid Visit

If the online visit is interrupted due to technical problems or poor internet issues, HEIs & peer members must try to reconnect again. It is the responsibility of the NAAC Coordinator/Officer to ensure that the communication goes smoothly throughout.

9) Virtual Monitoring of Hybrid Visit

The NAAC committee officials will monitor the entire hybrid NAAC visit virtually to ensure 100% transparency in the NAAC accreditation procedure.

Managing the Best practices during NAAC Accreditation Process

Extensive research, self-analysis, and adoption of best practices can enable institutions to prove their merit during the NAAC peer team visit. Feedback from faculty and students can help institutions a lot and take them a long way in improving the standard of quality throughout the campus. An institute like any other organization is an interdependent system where each process is related to the other in some way or the other. So it's important to monitor every activity going on in the campus along with its efficiency. NAAC questions to faculty would include every single detail.

Undoubtedly, getting NAAC accreditation is not an easy process. It takes time, effort, and reliable resources to continuously collect, manage & review the data & prepare compliance reports.