Stay ahead of the curve - NBA accreditation criteria

You must have read enough about NBA accreditation from our previous blogs. We thought we would now move further to tipping on a few facets of the NBA accreditation criteria. Before that let us stress what we have already done.

A tough battle to fight - NBA Accreditation

Attaining NBA accreditation cannot just happen overnight. It is clear from the below graph that there are totally ten different NBA Accreditation criteria, categorized as program-level and institution-level with a total of 1000 points.

Attaining a full 6-year accreditation needs 750 points in aggregate and a 3-year needs a minimum score of 600 points as mandatory.

NBA Scores as per SAR

Do not be alarmed at this wild score. Getting your personal best is possible. We have pulled out ways by which you could easily achieve the same. Read on.

The NBA Accreditation criteria

1. Check web sites, course catalogs

Now that you’ve decided to get NBA accredited, the first thing you should probably do is dig into the official NBA website to learn the standards of accreditation or simply run through its catalogs to get enough education. Continue the same process for the programs you wish to get accredited.

2. Let pre-qualifiers and SAR report be your doctrine

Scrutinize every single parameter and criteria that the NBA has for you. Right from the pre-qualifiers to the SAR report, everything matters. Do not feel overconfident! There might be something that you had overlooked. The NBA related documents can help you analyze where you stand at present. A gap analysis could help here.

Vision, Mission and Program Educational Objectives (60)

3. Get obsessed with Outcome-based Education (OBE)

Having decided to go in for NBA accreditation, the very basic thing that you need to indulge in is OBE.

Than the mapping, what’s crucial is the tweaking of Program Curriculum, Teaching-Learning process, assessment, and course delivery based on CO’s and PO’s attainment. Mind that this counts to a total of 240 points. You wouldn’t want to miss it right?

4. Build a strong faculty circle

Now that you know NBA’s standards and expectations, communicate the same with your faculty, both your expectations and NBA’s. Developing a strong academic research proficiency does the magic. As per the indicator, allocating each faculty with two research papers, with the exception of guiding scholars might help. That’s one per semester in a year.

5. Case studies and video lectures - Yes!

These may carry a total of 30 marks from the total score.

Make sure you stack up enough case studies in hand. 2-3 case studies per faculty would be a decent count. Besides this, video lectures score too.

Ask them to grab a 20-minute video of their lectures. Let that be 2-3 per faculty in a single semester.

6. Get on a war footing for sponsored research

Pick up research groups and start proposals for funding for that’s what the Sponsored Research indicator is all about!

Let them follow up with proposals, both inside and outside India with funding agencies for financing research projects. Keep the team informed that the funding should be equivalent to the value fixed by SAR, or at least a 60% closer to its benchmarked value. Achieving this can give you 25 marks. Easy isn’t?

7. Work on MoU’s

MoU’s with international connections can help you stay edge over the NBA bandwagon. Manage to get at least 2 MoU’s signed every academic year. This adds to at least 40 marks. Don’t forget, this should show a research collaboration and participation of both students and faculty.

8. Nurture your Alumni

As important is alumni, equally important is building a Student Support System. Alumni Engagement and Student Support System together gives you a fat 50-50 score. Think of ways to boost alumni engagement, expand alumni relationships by forming groups and conducting regular meetings.

9. First-year academics

This comes the first in institution-level criteria. The faculty-student ratio is one of its focus. As per the new revision, NBA accreditation has made it mandatory to have a 1:15 faculty-student ratio for six years and 1:20 for three years of accreditation.

In addition, see that you focus on the Faculty qualification, first-year Academic Performance, attainment of Course Outcomes and Program outcomes.

10. Get industry connected

Industry research and consultancy should be your next emerging area. You could try out industry connection in any which ways possible -  make faculty involve with industries as consultants on monetary as well as on pro-bonus basis. Bolster the research and consultancy by appointing research associates to take up assignments with the industry. 

The overall industry involvement to collect consultancy funds musters your overall score up to 90 points. This should be equivalent to the value fixed by SAR, or to at least a 60% closer to the benchmarked value. Not so hard, is it?