Evaluation of benefits and expectations from NAAC accreditation among higher educational institutions in India

Abstract

This study is an effort to understand the extent to which NAAC accreditation has actually helped the Higher Education Institutions [HEIs] in India against the claims of benefit that NAAC make to the HEIs that they will realize after going through NAAC accreditation process. It is important to study this, as so far there is no known attempt made to understand to what extent NAAC accreditation helps HEIs in India. The present study is a descriptive research adopting positivism and uses survey methodology to obtain quantitative data over cross sectional period of time. The study employs non probability sampling scheme. For this purpose a total of 40 statements were culled out from the 9 benefits that NAAC claims on its website. These 40 statements further were put in a structures questionnaire. The same was also administered to a total of 304 NAAC accredited and 18 Non-NAAC accredited HEIs in India. The responses from the survey were analyzed using cross tabulation, chi-square tests, a matrix of extent of realization and extent of expectation and service gap measuring framework provided by SERVQUAL. The results of the study indicate that a) all HEIs in India have a similar expectation from the NAAC accreditation process b) the extent of realization of benefit from the NAAC accreditation process though shows a similar pattern among all the accredited HEIs on the nine benefits claimed by NAAC, they differ with respect to benefit no. 4 i.e., “NAAC accreditation facilitates funding agencies to look for objective data for performance funding. And benefit it no.8 i.e., “NAAC accreditation facilitates employers to look for reliable information on the quality of education offered to the prospective recruits” Hence, this study concludes that NAAC might want to pay a little more attention to its member HEIs realizing benefit no. 4 and 8 mentioned above.