Importance and Benefits of Institutional Accreditation for Higher Education

The fundamental goal of any educational institution is to provide quality education & state-of-the-art facilities to students & help them build new skills that would help in shaping their careers. And the first step towards ensuring that institutions are working in synchronization with the primary goal is getting “Accreditation” from reputed agencies like NBA/NAAC, and others. Accreditation helps in protecting the interests of all the stakeholders - students, faculty, parents, and educators by mapping & evaluating the overall institutional performance on the basis of the programs offered.

Let us understand step by step what accreditation actually means, why it is important, and what benefits it has to offer…

What is Accreditation?

Accreditation can be defined as a quality assurance process that helps educational institutions to attain their academic goals by meeting the guidelines & standards set by accreditation granting agencies such as National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)/National Board of Accreditation (NBA) etc. Educational institutions have to undergo an extensive process that requires them to successfully pass the quality checks in terms of managing accurate institutional data, designing courses, carrying out assessments to evaluate & enhance students’ performance, provide top-class facilities, etc.

For instance, if an institution aims at getting NBA accreditation, then it must meet the operational standards & guidelines set by the NBA. NBA committee members will review the programs, crucial institutional information, data & compliance reports of the institution and, if they find them satisfactory enough to match their standards, they will grant accreditation!

Importance of Institutional Accreditation

Institutions have to go through a standard process to reach the end goal of getting accredited. Usually, the course accreditation process comprises the following steps:

• Peer Review
• Visit and Examination
• Final Decision

For the peer review process, institutions need to compile institutional data from the past few years & prepare and submit error-free compliance reports. Satisfactory reports lead to the next step where the institution qualifies for accreditation committee visit. The committee checks whether the parameters mentioned in the reports are met by verifying the necessary proofs and documents & then a decision to provide accreditation or not is made. So, the accreditation process empowers higher educational institutions by helping them to analyze their loopholes, improve their academic structure, work on it, and gain trust amongst individuals. It provides institutions an opportunity to design their education and head in the direction of continuous improvement. Therefore, accreditation is extremely important.