Dr. Hitesh Tahbildar
From
last 10 years the word NBA has become a horrible word for some faculties of Technical
Institution. Different faculties have
different views. Some faculties believe that with the help of NBA an Institute
can improve quality of the programme offered in diploma, degree, and post
graduate level. On the other hand, some faculties believe that NBA has no benefits
but only documentation of works. In this
context, I felt some need to write to a few words on the benefits of NBA and
challenges faced by us in NBA accreditation.
First
of all, we know that NBA was
established in 1994 by the AICTE to
evaluate the quality of educational programs offered by institutions, from
diploma to post-graduate levels. NBA became the
permanent signatory member of the Washington Accord on 13th June 2014. This
Accord is an international agreement between 20+ countries and is entered into
by authorities, like the NBA, responsible for accrediting engineering
diploma/degree/post graduate programs in their own countries.
There are basically 2 categories for institutions to apply for NBA. They
are -
TIER I: All IITs, NITs, private
universities, private colleges running Engineering program, all
Autonomous colleges.
TIER II: All Engineering colleges, Polytechnics under
Govt. of Assam affiliated to University/Council,
and State Council
for Technical Education.
Being a Government Polytechnic we belong to TIER II category. Now the question here
is whether all polytechnics are eligible to apply NBA accreditation? The answer is a big No. The Institute producing
minimum 3 batches can only apply for NBA. There must be the prerequisite of
AICTE approved with zero deficiency. The following steps are to be followed for
applying NBA-
- Go
to the NBA portal, fill out the registration form and pay the registration
fee.
- Generate
application, fill pre-qualifiers and pay 10% of the accreditation fee.
- If
the program meets requirements, then proceed to the next step.
- If
the program doesn’t meet requirements, you would be communicated the
reason and you to follow the previous steps again.
Here,
we need to remember that NBA accreditation is given to a programme and not to a
Department or Institute.
In pre qualifier,
the primary focus is on enrollment and placement (both higher study and jobs
are considered). Most of the Government
Polytechnics have good enrollment, good placement but the problem is with
faculties. The Part-Time faculty - designation is neither accepted by AICTE nor
NBA. But our Part Time faculties work like contractual faculties and the basic
requirement like AICTE prescribed qualifications, experiences are excellent and
most of them are selected through a selection procedure.
Once an Institute is qualified in prequalified,
it has to prepare Self Assessment Report (SAR). There are two criteria in SAR-
a)
Program level criteria
b)
Institute level criteria
Program
level criterion
Criterion
1: Vision, Mission and Program Educational objectives: These criteria can be fulfilled easily by Government
Polytechnics by preparing vision and mission of the Institute. It also has to
be prepared by department association with stakeholders maintaining the
consistency between them. The vision and mission should be sufficiently
published in Institute website, students groups, canteen, Library, reading room,
class rooms, faculty rooms, department corridors, and many other places in the
Institute and hostel campus for wide publicity. Every stakeholder including students should
know the vision and mission of the Institute and the departments.
Criterion
2: Program
curriculum and teaching learning processes- To make an employable diploma engineer,
the main focus is industry readiness curriculum. Our curriculum is not revised
since 2017. Therefore, curriculum needs to be revised immediately by State Council
for Technical Education (SCTE). The curricula gap analysis has to be done and should
be reformed. Another important aspect is content beyond syllabus. This can be implemented
by inviting people from various Industries of the state as well as experts from
different fields.
Most important part
of this criterion is teaching learning process. The key focus here are academic calendar of SCTE, departmental academic calendar, methodology
to support weak students, encourage bright students, smart class room,
innovative teaching methodology, student feedback of teaching learning process
and constructive feedback to poorly evaluated feedback faculties. Most of the
above are implemented in our polytechnics. However, steps are taken for
effective use of smart class rooms.
Other criteria
includes encouraging good quality projects and report writing, industry visits,
internship trainings, invitation of industry expert to deliver lecturer at
least two in one semester by each departments, Community service, encouraging
students to take online courses, extra and co curricular activities.
Criterion
3: Course outcomes and program outcomes- This criterion is
a primary understanding of Outcome based Education (OBE). These are the
following levels of outcomes based Education (OBE)-
1. Course
Outcome: Major role of faculties here is to prepare course outcome for all
subjects. Course outcome are the statements that describe what the students are
expected to know and able to do after completion of the subject. Normally there
are 3 to 5 COs in each subject. The teachers needs to understand how much the
student is able to understand and learn for each COs. Accordingly the teacher
can improve his teaching learning ability on that particular COs.
2. Program
Outcomes: POs are the statements that describe the knowledge, skills and attitudes
of the students at the end of the program. There are 7 POS in Polytechnic program defined
by NBA.
3. Program
specific Outcomes: PSO are statements that describe what the graduates of
specific subject or program should be able to do.
4. Program
Educational Objectives: PEO are the board of statements that describe the
career and professional accomplishments of a student after completion of
graduation.
CO PO attainment
The POs and PSO are
accomplished through the course curriculum. The COs defined for each course are
mapped to POs and PSOs. The different methods for assessment, evaluation and
measurement of POs /PSOs are direct and indirect assessment. Direct method
includes Internal Assessment, semester end theory examination, and practical
examination and Laboratory records. Indirect methods include Program exit
survey, alumni survey, employer survey etc.
Course outcome
attainment: In our Polytechnics, curriculum and examinations are conducted by
SCTE. Till date SCTE did not provide any marks for every COs separately in the end
semester question paper. Therefore, we have decided to perform course
attainment giving more weight age in class test. Class Test are conducted
considering all COs. 70% of weight age are given to class Test and the
remaining 30% are given to end semester examination. And here, we can assume that
all COs are equally weighted.
Criterion
4: Student Performance - This criterion focuses on sanction
intake, and number of students admitted though state level counseling and lateral
entry for the last 6 academic years including the current year. Further, it
also looks into the numbers of students passed without back and number of
students passed with back. Academic performance of the first, second and third
year are calculated simultaneously. Placements, higher studies and entrepreneurship
in formations are also taken and the average placement data are calculated.
Here, ISTE student chapter, College week, All Poly meet, publication of
newsletters by departments, participation in interstate events by the students
are also taken into account.
Criterion 5: Faculty
information and Contribution- In this criterion student faculty ratio is
calculated considering the fractional load for inter department including first
year courses. In our Polytechnics, if we consider regular as well as Part-Time/contractual
faculties the ratio will be satisfactory. However, the part time designation is
not taken into consideration for SFR calculation. On the other hand, in our
Polytechnic, the faculties are well qualified. Moreover, Faculty trainings are
an important aspect in this criterion.
Some other points include-
departmental consultancy, product development, SDP/STTP conducted, faculty
Performance appraisal and development system. Our polytechnic is working for
consultancy and every faculty has attended at least one training program in
each semester. Faculties are encouraged to submit SDP proposal to AICTE from
each department.
Criterion
6: Facilities and Technical support -In this criterion Laboratories,
equipment utilizations with reference to PO/PSO and different facilities are a necessary
part. Further, the number of computers available in each department, Language
laboratory facility is taken into consideration. Our Polytechnic fulfills this
criterion to a satisfactory performance level.
Criterion
7: Continuous Improvement- In this phase, POs & PSOs
attainment levels are evaluated and actions are taken for improvement. Various Steps
are taken for improvement of placements and higher studies. Faculties of each
department take special classes on Mathematics/Drawing/Computer
knowledge/Branch subjects/Physics /Chemistry as required for different lateral
examination.
Institute
Level Criterion:
Criterion
8: Student support system - This criterion looks into the
mentoring system as the mentoring system is to be developed and every student are
taken under a faculty. Mentoring to students is given for professional
guidance, career advancement, course work specific for lateral and interviews.
In our Polytechnic we have designed a mentoring methodology for proper
mentoring of the students. ISTE student chapter are conducted for maintaining a
good life style and stress management activities are done on a regular basis. Both
psychologist and psychiatric professionals are invited to conduct such
activities.
Students’ feedback
is taken for teaching learning and effectiveness of the classes and a
methodology is developed for feedback analysis. Subsequently, constructive feedback
is sent to the faculties having less than expected for future improvement.
Further feedback
are taken specially from the outgoing batches on facilities like Laboratory
facilities, drinking water facilities, sports and other facilities available in
the Institute. Accordingly, feedback are analyzed and actions are taken for
improvement.
Other important
aspects in this criterion are career guidance and training and placement. Our
Polytechnic take necessary steps to conduct career guidance programme. Training
and placements are conducted at different periods by inviting different
companies for our students. Steps are
taken to encourage entrepreneurship and incubation by conducting ISTE student
chapter.
Criterion
9: Governance,
Institutional Support and financial resources-The complete procedure for
preparing the vision mission is documented. Vision and mission statements are displayed
and every student and stakeholder is made aware of the vision and mission of
the Institute and department.
In this criterion
the NBA team looks for the Institute management, administrative setup, various
bodies, committee rules and procedures, recruitment and promotion policies etc.
In our polytechnic,
we do not have a Governing body; however we have Institute development
Committee for preparing the plans for development. We have academic council for
looking into the academic aspects, Anti ragging committee for looking into
ragging aspects, internal complaint committee for sexual harassment, and purchase
committee for purchase of materials etc. The minutes of meetings are recorded,
and are uploaded in the institute website. Government service rules and OM for promotions
and career advancement scheme are followed. Grievance Redressal cell is
available for solving any complaint raised by the students and faculties.
In this criterion,
NBA team expects that financial power should be decentralized to HODs for
effective utilization of funds collected from students and received from
various agencies. The Institute provides some amount of funds to the HODs for
proper management of the departments for academic facilities.
For transparency and availability of correct/
unambiguous information in public domain the Institute facilitates Right to
Information act.
Here, budget allocation, utilization and public accounting at Institute
level are also verified by the NBA team. In our Polytechnic, there are two
types of budget –one is from the government and other is fund received from
students for Laboratory development, Sports, Library, medical, magazine,
government dues etc. We allocate departmental funds for purchase of equipments
with the approval of Institute development committee for every semester and try
to utilize the same through purchase committee for maintenance as well as
upgradation of laboratories in the departments..
The team also focuses on whether there are adequate budgets in the Polytechnic.
The salary head receives adequate budget from the Government. The recurring
budgets are given every year which are utilized for maintenance, purchase of
office stationeries etc. Further every year government is spending an amount
for improvement/upgradation of the Institute through PWD building department.
These budgets which are utilized in the last three years are to be shown
to the NBA team.
Audited statements are displayed on the institute website for
transparency.
Another important aspect of the
NBA criteria is internet bandwidth and library facilities. Our Institute has
100 Mbps NKN connectivity and recently we have extended the connectivity to the
newly built building, Administrative building. Steps are taken to make Wi-Fi
availability to the students.
Each department of the Institute are taking various initiative for
community development by adopting some local primary schools, providing science
lecturer in schools, donating Fans in schools, adopting tribal village, food
donation to the orphanage, distribution of foods and necessary items during the
pandemic etc.
Alumni committee is formed and
this committee has provided us with a Gymnasium for the regular physical
activity of our students.
Finally, I would like to state that, the Institutes having NBA
accreditation helps in continuous improvement of an Institution, together with
the improvement in the students’ performance and enhances in the quality of education.
Another important aspect of NBA accredited Institution is that, they are
internationally recognized and it provides mobility of the graduates and
professionals. Further it helps Institutions
in securing necessary funds from Government. It also helps in enhancing chances
of the college placement programs, and careers of the students.
Therefore I would like to conclude my write-up by restating that, for the benefit of the Institution and the careers of students every faculty should understand the importance of NBA and work together for making the Institution NBA accredited. Published in AEIAN 2022-23 Page 52