NAAC removes one-fifth of its assessors after bribery incident

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has removed over one-fifth of its 5,300 assessors based on the recommendations of a 10-member special committee formed after the arrest of seven NAAC officials by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in February, said Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairperson, NAAC executive Committee on Tuesday. The arrests were made in a ratings-for-bribes case.

Even before the bribery incident, NAAC had removed around 800 out of its 6,100 assessors, bringing the number down to 5,364, due to data discrepancies, protocol violations, and based on feedback from their peer assessors and college officials, Sahasrabudhe added.

In February, CBI arrested 10 individuals, including seven members of the NAAC peer team and three office-bearers of Guntur-based Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation (KLEF) in the corruption case, which pertains to allegations of bribes being paid to secure an A++ rating for KLEF in Andhra Pradesh during a NAAC inspection. The federal agency has claimed that KLEF officials sought favourable accreditation by bribing NAAC inspection committee members.

Later, NAAC debarred all seven arrested members from further visits to colleges and universities for evaluation.

On Tuesday, Sahasrabudhe sought to play down the potential fallout of the arrests.

“All seven members never went to any college together; and not even two of them together for inspection in the past one and a half years before the incident. The main accused did not go on any visit for the last one and a half years. Even in cases where a one of the remaining six accused went for a visit with other team members, NAAC peer team assessors observed nothing abnormal ,” Sahasrabudhe told HT. The main accused is Samarendra Nath Saha, who was acting vice-chancellor of Ramchandra Chandravansi University, Palamu, Jharkhand, and chairperson of the seven-member NAAC peer team. 

Following the incident, NAAC received several complaints about grading discrepancies which led to officials re-visiting and re-evaluating around 400 institutions including government ones where issues such as sudden grade jumps, unusually high first-time scores, or 30% gaps between the Data Validation and Verification (DVV) process and the onsite Peer Team Visit (PTV) were found, he explained, adding that in over half the cases, grades were subsequently lowered.

Established in 1994, NAAC evaluates the quality of education and infrastructure in universities and colleges using a grading system based on a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) from 1.51 to 4.00 and grades them for five years on a scale from A++ to C, while a D signifies no accreditation. CGPA is based on factors such as teaching, research, innovation, and infrastructure. A high NAAC score gives institutions greater autonomy and higher credibility.

NAAC peer team committees, comprising academic experts from various universities, conduct physical assessments of institutes and send the assessment report to NAAC within two days of their visit to the institutes.

“We removed 1,233 assessors out of 5,364 assessors from our database after the February incident based on the recommendations of a 10-member special NAAC committee consisting of academicians and experts of different fields and regions. They recommended the removal based on discrepancies in colleges assessed by them or feedback from their colleagues, etc. We had earlier removed around 800 assessors before the incident. We now have 4,131 assessors, and 100 new assessors are being added,” Sahasrabudhe said.

He also added that NAAC is gearing up for a new accreditation system.

“The framework for ‘Binary or Basic Accreditation’ is ready, and the framework for ‘Maturity Based Graded Levels (MBGL)’ is in an advanced stage and will be completed within a month. We will launch them together. We are aiming for accreditation of 100% of colleges in the next five years.”

Under the binary accreditation system, institutions meeting minimum benchmarks across 50+ parameters will be marked as accredited, and others as not accredited. The MGBL framework will then rate accredited institutions from Level 1 to 5 based on progress and performance over the years.