As easy as it gets: Council plans ABCD grading for colleges

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, February 14, 2007

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), the higher education accreditation agency, is changing its grading system for colleges from April. It will now assess colleges on a four-point scale, which should come as a relief to the state government.
Unhappy with the existing 9-point assessment system (see table) the state was planning its own assessment system. It was also unpopular with colleges, as a difference of a mere five points meant a different grade altogether. With the new method there will be wider scope for normalising the score.
“There was also scope for making a biased assessment. The new model will check this,” NAAC deputy adviser M.S. Shyamasundar said from Bangalore.
But the state government was not yet ready to comment on the proposal. “I cannot comment on the merits or demerits of the method suggested by NAAC until I see it. The state government wants to have its own assessment body; the procedure is being finalised,” said Subimal Sen, vice-chairman of the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education.
The NAAC’s proposed model makes use of the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) obtained by colleges. There are seven criteria on which to assess colleges; weightage would be given to research and consultancy.
Colleges that get between 3.01 and 4 CGPA get grade A and remark ‘Very Good’; 2.01-3 is grade B and ‘Good’; 1.01-2 is grade C and ‘Threshold’. Those getting 0-1 CGPA would be declared ‘Below Threshold’ and get grade D (see box).
The NAAC passed the proposal at its 41st executive council meeting on February 10. It has now invited comments and suggestions before the proposal becomes a guideline from April.
The state government was particularly unhappy about assessing colleges in big cities and those in towns on the same scale, but Prof. Suranjan Das, NAAC executive committee member and pro-vice chancellor (academic) at CU, said this aspect too was being looked into.
Higher education institutions will now have to approach NAAC in two stages for requesting an assessment. The first stage looked into the college’s potential for undergoing assessment. After obtaining the organisation’s profile and some quantitative information, the council will suggest some improvements for reaching the threshold level.
“Many colleges do not want to assess themselves. This method will help colleges prepare their self-study report,” said Shyamasundar.
In the second stage, the institutes will submit the self-study report for the NAAC team to assess. The eligibility criteria for colleges and universities that can be assessed were also being relaxed.
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