Monday, June 22, 2015

NBA Accreditation

Autonomy is not autonomy.

Let me elaborate. The University status gives the Institute autonomy of many kinds. We can offer new programmes. We can institute new degrees. We can fix our fees. And many more.

We want to be known for our programmes in masters and doctoral level. At these level, we must provide assistantship to the masters and doctoral students. As a self-financing Institute, we do not have the resources to do that. Hence, we depend on other agencies to provide these financial help.

When we started Ph.D. programme last year, we requested the Government of Odisha to provide a few scholarships to the Ph.D. students. As always, the Government has gracefully obliged.

We get Assistantship for Masters programmes from AICTE. This year we started a new Master's Programme. However, before we can apply for scholarships to AICTE, we needed to be accredited by NBA.

Now, accreditation has a lengthy preparatory process. The process is based on defining outcomes and working backwards.

This year's faculty retreat is devoted to preparing ourselves for NBA accreditation.

We plan to get a couple of departments accredited by next year.

Wish us luck.