Bangalore: As part of its 11th plan, the National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) has developed and implemented a new assessment and accreditation methodology. The new methodology, introduced on April 1, 2007, was developed based on extensive discussions with all stakeholders of higher education.

Speaking to The Hindu about the benefits of the new methodology, V.S. Prasad, director, NAAC, said that it was framed to ensure continuous and need-based improvements in the instruments of assessment and accreditation. "Until March 2007, NAAC was following a nine-point grading system. The new methodology is known as the three-letter grading system."

Prof. Prasad said with the new methodology, grading was more reliable and objective. It enhanced the credibility and reliability of the assessment process and helped NAAC assess a large number of institutions effectively in a short period of time. "The new methodology is a collective thinking of the academia across the country. We (NAAC) held many discussions with the stakeholders before arriving at a particular pattern," he said.

In the nine-point scale, the numerical scores were converted to letter grades by maintaining the raw score at the base. It had finer interval levels of 5 per cent for each grade level. "This small percentage difference is difficult to establish and the relative evaluation is not always exact, which was evident from the high standard deviation. This made interpretation of the final grade difficult."

Prof. Prasad said to arrive at the three-letter grading system, NAAC had to identify critical areas and fine tune the criteria, key aspects and development of assessment indicators as guidelines. "All this ensures more accuracy in assessment of institutions under the new methodology. The assessment is also less subjective," he said.

He said the letter grades — A (very good), B (good) and C (satisfactory) — were given starting at the lower level of measurement and for the aggregated grade points after applying the relevant weightage at the key aspect and criteria levels.

"The new system has several advantages. First, there is a 15-point range. It has a wider scope for normalising the scores, extreme biases (if any) are minimised and relative evaluations are more exact because of reduction in the standard deviation," he said.

Prof. Prasad said that developing a new methodology was a huge task. "We are constantly trying to learn from experience and improve assessment and accreditation instruments continuously. The new methodology will enable the assessors to measure the quality of institutions in a better perspective and the adjudication will focus on the right things."

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