Dr. Hitesh Tahbildar
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-
1. Go to the
NBA portal, fill out the registration form and pay the registration fee.
2. Generate
application, fill pre-qualifiers and pay 10% of the accreditation fee.
3. If the
program meets requirements, then proceed to the next step.
4. 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 enrolment and
placement (both higher study and jobs are considered). Most of the Government Polytechnics have good
enrolment, 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.
* Dr. H. Tahbildar, Principal, Assam Engineering Institute, Chandmari, Guwahati-3