Preparing for Accreditation by NBA

Dr M S R Murty
msrm1951@gmail.com

1. Basic Requirements
The Institute applying for accreditation for various Programs should fulfill basic
requirements with respect to

Faculty Student ratio: better than AICTE norm of 1:15

Cadre ratio of Professors: Associate Professors: Assistant Professors 1: 2: 6
Accreditation of Faculty members
Two batches must have graduated in the Programs
Infrastructure requirements including those of Instructional areas, computers,
library books etc., as per AICTE norms
Students admission in numbers and quality
Good Faculty qualifications as per UGC Performance Based Appraisal System
(PBAS)
Alumni Society, News letter
MOUs with Industries
Others like Organization of Guest lectures, Seminars, Faculty Development
programs, Sports, Co and Extra curricular activities

All Engineering Programs are approved by AICTE through online web processing.
Zero deficiency reports must be there for all the Academic years which fall under
the accreditation zone.

2. Creating awareness about Outcome Based Education (OBE)

Understanding philosophy of Outcome Based Education (OBE) by the Management,
Teaching and Nonteaching staff is important. Though implementing authentic OBE is
difficult by affiliating Institutions, applying the concepts to the extent possible is
important as the basis of Accreditation followed by NBA after Washington Accord is
Outcome Based Education framework.
Regular training sessions, workshops, discipline wise focus group meetings on
implementation aspects of OBE are to be organized. The NBA accreditation criteria
is based on the ABETs and vast amount of literature is available from Universities
in USA, Australia, Malasia, Hong Kong, Canada and others. NBA training and
workshop materials are also available in the NBA website.
Awareness is also to be created among students, parents, alumni and others at
every opportunity.

3. Advance planning and administrative set up for accreditation

Planning for two to three years is necessary to implement required processes of
Outcome based accreditation.
Administrative set up in the form of following Committees with clear objectives is
necessary.
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.

Institute Assessment Committee

Program Assessment Committee (for each Program)
Course Assessment Committee (for each Course)
Industrial Advisory Boards (IAB)
Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC)

These Committees formed with senior Faculty Members will have the primary
responsibility of
Planning
Assessment
Evaluation
At various levels: Course level, Program level and Institute level.
Information required for application to NBA should be systematically collected under
the direction of above Committees. Documents to be shown as evidence

4. Accreditation application Process

Self- Assessment Report (SAR) for a Program for which Accreditation is sought is to
be filled online and submitted. At a time application for accreditation of 5 programs
can be submitted. Each Program SAR is separately filled and submitted online.
Though two batches of students must graduate from a Program for accreditation,
NBA has introduced provisional accreditation concept for the Programs newly
started also.
Preparing SAR is an elaborate process and will normally take several weeks. Initial
evaluation will be carried out by NBA and expert evaluators will visit. Evidences for
the data and information will be scrutinized by NBA visiting team. Accreditation will
be granted by NBA if found eligible.

5 Criteria for Accreditation by NBA

Implementation of a new outcome-based education (OBE) program requires
the following activities:
1. Program Educational Objectives (PEOs) :Define educational
objectives or goals what graduates are expected to attain within a few
years of graduation.
2. Program Outcomes (POs): Define educational outcomes what the
graduates would be able to do at the time of graduation.
3. Stakeholders: Identifying the stakeholders and their involvement in
articulating and evaluating the PEOs and POs.

4. Curriculum Design: A well-designed curriculum that will produce the

desired objectives and outcomes.
5. Course Outcomes (COs): Mapping of the curricular courses how they
contribute to the educational objectives and outcomes.
6. Continuous Improvement: Development of continuous improvement
educational processes for assessing and evaluating the degree of
achievements of the PEOs and POs for program improvements.
The Criteria used by NBA for granting Accreditation to a Program along with the
scoring points in brackets out of total 1000 points is given below. There are total 10
Criteria in the NBA June 2015 Format. Previously there are 9 Criteria.
Program level Criteria
1.
Vision, Mission and Program Educational Objectives (60)
2.
Program Curriculum and TeachingLearning Processes (120)
3.
Course Outcomes and Program Outcomes (120)
4.
Students Performance
(150)
5.
Faculty Information and Contributions (200)
6.
Facilities and Technical Support (80)
7.
Continuous Improvement (50)
Institute Level Criteria
8.
First Year Academics (50)
9.
Student Support Systems (50).
10. Governance, Institutional Support and Financial Resources (120)
Criteria
1. Vision, Mission & PEOs: Formulation; Dissemination; Assessment;
2. Course outcome and Program outcomes: Formulation; Mapping ; Assessment;
Attainment
3. Curriculum development: Process to identify the gap; Action taken; Salient
aspects of the above criteria from the point of preparation are given in the following
sections.