Recognition for improvement in quality of education and other activities in terms of accreditation and awards are fast becoming the order of the day for colleges, which are going in for the same for also attracting students. The colleges get recognition from industry associations, media organisations, colleges' associations and various other organisations. One of the sought after is accreditation by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council’s (NAAC).
Colleges say that most colleges go in for the NAAC assessment because they are keen on improving quality of education, because competing institutions have the same and for improving admission. And, more importantly, they also seek NAAC accreditation for getting autonomous status.
A principal of a college says that in the process of Gaining the accreditation, institutions get to see and adopt best practices in the education sector and set those as bench marks. Once acquired, it puts a young institution on an equal footing with an age old well-established institution if both have the same NAAC score.
Institutions are graded on a scale of four with the accreditation valid for five years.
Head of another institution says that as the accreditation process involves very many parameters, colleges are focussed on all-round development like going in for quality research projects, securing government grants for the same, engaging students therein and also taking in more research students.
Aside from NAAC accreditation, colleges use other recognitions that come their way to showcase their standards to admit students.
Recently the Kongunadu Arts and Science College renewed its NAAC accreditation for five years with a score of 3.64 on a scale of four.
And this puts the college in ‘A’ grade. T. Muraleeswari, Principal, says that this recognition puts the college in the
first place among accredited Bharathiar University affiliated institutions, fifth place among colleges in the State and 10th among colleges across nation.
Sankara College of Science and Commerce recently obtained NAAC accreditation scoring 3.19 on a scale of four and obtained ‘A’ rating.
Sri Eshwar College of Engineering won the Sustainable Institute-Industry Partnership 2014 Award in the ‘Upcoming College with Good Potential’ category from the Society for Educational and Entrepreneurship Development, Chennai. The award is in recognition of the efforts the institution had taken to collaborate with the industry to place students in jobs.
The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University won the 'Best Seed Technology Research Centre' of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research in recognition of the various seed technological research works carried out at the Seed Centre, said a release from the institution.
(Reporting by Karthik Madhavan)
