India has one of the largest and diverse education systems in the world. Privatization, widespread expansion, increased autonomy and introduction of Programmes in new and emerging areas have improved access to higher education. At the same time, it has also led to widespread concern on the quality and relevance of the higher education. To address these concerns, the National Policy on Education (NPE, 1986) and the Programme of Action (PoA, 1992) spelt out strategic plans for the policies, advocated the establishment of an independent National accreditation agency. Consequently, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) was established in 1994 as an autonomous institution of the University Grants Commission (UGC) with its Head Quarter in Bengaluru. The mandate of NAAC as reflected in its vision statement is in making quality assurance an integral part of the functioning of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

The NAAC functions through its General Council (GC) and Executive Committee (EC) comprising educational administrators, policy makers and senior academicians from a crosssection of Indian higher education system. The Chairperson of the UGC is the President of the GC of the NAAC, the Chairperson of the EC is an eminent academician nominated by the President of GC (NAAC). The Director is the academic and administrative head of NAAC and is the member-secretary of both the GC and the EC. In addition to the statutory bodies that steer its policies and core staff to support its activities NAAC is advised by the advisory and consultative committees constituted from time to time.

Vision and Mission

The vision of NAAC is:

To make quality the defining element of higher education in India through a combination of self and external quality evaluation, promotion and sustenance initiatives.

The mission statements of the NAAC aim at translating the NAAC’s vision into action plans and define NAAC’s engagement and endeavor as given below:

• To arrange for periodic assessment and accreditation of institutions of higher education or units thereof, or specific academic programmes or projects
• To stimulate the academic environment for promotion of quality in teaching-learning and research in higher education institutions;
• To encourage self-evaluation, accountability, autonomy and innovations in higher education;
• To undertake quality-related research studies, consultancy and training programmes, and
• To collaborate with other stakeholders of higher education for quality evaluation, promotion and sustenance.

Striving to achieve its goals as guided by its vision and mission statements, NAAC primarily focuses on assessment of the quality of higher education institutions in the country. The NAAC methodology for Assessment and Accreditation is very much similar to that followed by Quality Assurance (QA) agencies across the world and consists of self-assessment by the institution along with external peer assessment organized by NAAC.