Abstract :

In the context of education, Accreditation and Ranking are measures of overall quality of an educational Programme and Institution. Both are assessments of the totality of various quality parameters of education including the input quality and quantity, innovative process and performance, continuous improvement, institutional support, governance and output quality in terms of students’ performance, graduate outcomes, inclusivity, perception, etc. Since Accreditation and Ranking are measures of the overall performance and total quality of an educational programme or institution, the scores obtained for all criteria/metrics/parameters are cumulated to compute the total marks, grade or rank as the case may be. Nevertheless, there is a discernible difference between Accreditation and Ranking in terms of the specific criteria or metrics used, weightages assigned, assessment methodology employed, and description of the outcome. Accreditation and Ranking are described by three important measures namely NBA accreditation, NAAC accreditation and NIRF ranking. NBA accreditation is a measure of the degree of excellence of a Programme, whereas NAAC accreditation and NIRF ranking are measures of the degree of excellence of an Institution. All the three measures are unique and not competitors to each other but together they provide multiple benefits to the Institutions. Hence, it is desirable that all Tier I, Tier II and other institutions aspire to achieve all the three distinct measures, step by step sequentially, in order to continuously improve the quality for achieving fame and recognition at national level.