The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Accreditation board seeks global recognition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 03, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Accreditation board seeks global recognition

By Our Staff Reporter

MADURAI, MAY 2. The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) has applied for membership of the Washington Accord, an international association of accreditation boards from various countries, to seek global recognition. The Accord is an exclusive club formed after nine countries joined with the United States and if India is given membership, the accreditation standards here will gain credibility and global visibility, according B.S. Sonde, chairman of NBA (All-India Council for Technical Education).

Speaking to reporters here yesterday, he said the NBA had been working for provisional membership, as becoming part of the prestigious body such as the Washington Accord, would be advantageous to engineering and technology institutions and to students when they go abroad. A three-member panel from the Accord will visit India in September for studying the NBA's application and its functioning.

"There are already indications of achieving the membership. Once the panel visits us, it should happen anytime by the end of the year," Prof. Sonde said. "Such membership will be a big boost to India." The countries involved in the Accord are the United States, South Africa, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hungary and Ireland. The Accord was formed taking a cue from the Accreditation Board in Engineering and Technology (America) that came into being in the 1930s.

Earlier, inaugurating a one-day workshop on `Accreditation — A Right Approach,' organised by Thiagarajar College of Engineering, he said sustaining and enhancing quality in technical education was essential. Urging the engineering and technical education institutions to get assessed and accredited, the NBA chairman said so far the Board assessed and accredited over 1,350 programmes of which about 225 were from Tamil Nadu. He said any institution, which completed two batches of students, was eligible to seek accreditation.

The NBA was established in India in 1994.

"We (NBA) welcome any institution but the requisite is that two batches of students should have passed out. There are a lot of gains if accreditation is given," Prof. Sonde said. Tamil Nadu was leading in the number of engineering colleges and intake capacity. While India had 1,200 engineering colleges offering both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, Tamil Nadu had 250 of them, more than 20 per cent of the national strength. The intake capacity for UG engineering courses was 3.6 lakhs of which 80,000 seats were in the State.

P.N. Razdan, Member Secretary, National Board of Accreditation— AICTE, said ensuring quality was the mandate of NBA.

The NBA would only help in institutions gaining quality but not criticise or compare them with other institutions. "Technical education accreditation is a mission for the country," Dr. Razdan said.

Karumuttu T. Kannan, vice-chairman and correspondent of the college, said principals and teachers should take up quality as a mission for better results.

Over 100 delegates from colleges in the State and Pondicherry took part.

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