This document discusses the steps that technical institutions should take to prepare for obtaining accreditation from the National Board of Accreditation (NBA). It outlines that institutions must demonstrate quality by design, not by chance, and prove they meet NBA criteria through evidence of performance over the past 3-5 years. The key steps include conducting a SWOT analysis, developing strategic plans, establishing policies, encouraging departmental planning, documenting best practices, setting quality benchmarks, collecting stakeholder feedback, and ensuring the curriculum is regularly updated. Proper preparation that creates a quality culture can take around six months and requires buy-in from all members of the institution.

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Preparation for Obtaining NBA Accreditation
B. L. Gupta*
Department of Management, National Institute of Technical Teacher’s Training & Research,
Shamla Hills, Bhopal(MP), India.
*E-mail : blgupta@nitttrbpl.ac.in
Article History : Received 30th
September 2011 Revised 03rd
December 2011 Accepted 07th
May 2012
Abstract : The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) has more than ten years experience of granting accreditation to programmes of
technical institutions. It has learnt many concepts and philosophies related to assuring quality of technical education programmes at
national level. Side by side the philosophy of total quality management in education has also developed. The NBA incorporated its experiences,
feedback from institutions and total quality management concepts in accreditation process. In June 2009, it has declared revise evaluation
guidelines for undergraduate level engineering programmes. In the revision of the criteria it has incorporated the provisions of Washington
Accord. The paper describes the preparation to be made at institute level for obtaining NBA accreditation for technical education programmes.
Keywords: NBA, Accreditation, Quality, Total quality management..
Journal of
Engineering,
Science &
Management
Education
J. Engg. Sc. Mgmt. Ed. Vol-5 Issue-II (472–474)
I– INTRODUCTION
The quality of technical education programmes is assessed by
the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) and a certificate of
accreditation is awarded for a specific programme. NBA is an
apex body for awarding accreditation to programmes of
technical institutions against criteria and parameters set by it.
It adopts transparent process for assessing the quality of
programme against set norms. Although obtaining accreditation
from NBA is a voluntary process, it is becoming compulsory
in indirect way because NBA accreditation brings many
advantages to the institution and its programme. The analysis
of NBA manual results in three points which are important for
the institutes preparing for obtaining NBA accreditation for
their programmes.
The first point is quality by design and not by chance. Meaning
thereby the institute is deemed to perform in a planned and
systematic manner in all areas of its functioning i.e. curricular,
co-curricular and extracurricular. The institute must prepare
plans in each area for achieving long term (Vision and missions)
as well as short term goals (Goals and objectives).
The second point is that whatever it says it should do and
whatever it does it should be able to prove.
The third point is that it has to prove through evidences that
its performance of last 3 to 5 years is consistently improving
and it qualifies on the NBA criteria for accreditation. In all it
has to prove that it has been observing the principles of total
quality management in tune with NBA requirements.
The NBA has recently revised the guidelines and formats for
under graduate engineering programmes and MBA. In new
guidelines it has re-strengthen the concepts of total quality
management. These concepts are assessment of the quality of
© NITTTR, Bhopal, India, All rights reserved
programmes using qualitative and quantitative parameters,
objectively measuring the quality of inputs, processes and
outputs against national benchmarks, continuous improvement
in the performance, networking with stakeholders, working in
teams, problem solving and problem prevention, transparency
in functioning, quality assurance, value addition, participation,
self assessment and peer assessment, innovations according to
requirements of the external environment, feedback from
students and stakeholders, adopting best practices, taking
corrective measures and so on.
There is a scope for refining the guidelines in the light of recent
developments in curriculum development, education
technology, information communication technology, education
management and assessment of learning.
II– STEPS OF PREPARATION FOR NBA
ACCREDITATION
The significant steps for NBA accreditation preparation at
institute level are stated below:
● The Principal, Dean, Head of departments and significant
position holders in the institute should identify the doubts,
questions and issues related to NBA accreditation and
clarify them from the experts.
● The principal and a team constituted for the purposes
should assess the performance of the programmes on NBA
criteria and ensure that they get more than 750 or more
than 600 points then only they should start action for
preparation for NBA accreditation. If they get less than
600 points they should prepare action plan to improve
performance on the criteria where they have scored less
points.
● The principal should organize awareness workshop on

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NBA accreditation for all the faculty and staff members
under the guidance of facilitators. In this workshop the
concept and philosophy of accreditation, its benefits and
efforts required for obtaining it should be clarified.
● The institute should participatively conduct strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threat (SWOT) analysis
preferably on NBA criteria and design strategies to tap
the strengths, grab the opportunities, minimize the
weaknesses and prevent the threats.
● The institute should conduct value analysis and design
the strategies for promoting the values associated with
quality.
● The institute should identify the issues and challenges and
analyze them for designing the strategies to achieve the
quality goals.
● The institute should craft the value loaded shared vision
and develop mission and goal statements. Based on this
the institute should prepare strategic, perspective and
annual plan at institute level.
● The departments should be encouraged to prepare
perspective and operational plan indicating challenging
and innovative goals. The department plans should be
aligned to vision of the institute.
● The institute should prepare policy document stating the
policies related to admission, recruitment, career
advancement, purchase, placement, rewards and
incentives, training and development, finance, safety and
security, continuing education, consultancy, networking
with industries and institutes of repute, students
development, community development, use of resources,
use of information communication technology (ICT),
preventing ragging, empowerment of women, encouraging
physically challenged students and achieving excellence
in academics etc.
● The institute should encourage the departments and
individual faculty members and sections to prepare plans
and academic calender such as department plan, subject
plan, industrial training plan, guidance and counseling
plan, project plan, laboratory work plan, research plan,
continuing education plan, consultancy plan, staff
development plan etc. These plans are the proof of working
by design and not by chance. They indicate the
professionalism and scientific approach of achieving
quality objectives.
● The institute should document its best practices on various
criteria of NBA. It should publicize the best practices
through print and electronic media.
● The institution should prepare brochures on various
themes for improving the effectiveness of communication.
These may be prepared on themes such as use of library,
training and placement services, guidance and counseling
services, paper writing for technical magazines, getting
assistance from the institute, safety awareness, actions in
emergency, suggestion box, guidelines for industrial
training and visit, continuing education programmes,
consultancy services, and guidelines for completing
projects.
● The institute should fix Notice Boards for various
significant activities such as Training and placement, Co-
curricular activities, General information, Conferences,
Seminars, competitions, games, symposium, exhibition
and Tech fair, Professional body activities, facilities for
physically challenged students, prevention of ragging, etc.
● The institute should display sign boards and signals for
easy accessibility. It should create barrier free environment
for women and physically challenged students.
● The institute should set benchmarks of quality on all the
parameters suggested by NBA so that quality of
educational programme is assured at individual,
department and institute level.
● The institute should make provision for on line
performance appraisal of teachers by students and other
significant stakeholders. The received feedback should be
periodically analyzed by computers. The positive,
corrective, encouraging and improvement oriented
feedback should be given to low performers and record of
the same should be maintained. At the same time rewards
and incentives should be given to high performers
according to the policy of the institute. The institute should
analyze the feedback received, discuss it with faculty
members and use as input for next cycle of planning.
● An effective grievances handling and problems solving
mechanism should be established at institutional level.
● A professionally managed guidance, counseling and
mentoring cell for the students should be established at
department level.
● Adequate awareness on ragging prevention, prevention
of women harassment, protection of environment, AIDS,
entrepreneurship, safety and other related issues should
be created among students.
● Every year innovative, unique and challenging activities
should be undertaken by the departments which should
be a part of the operational plan.
● Institute's corporate image building exercises should be
designed, implemented and documented. These exercises
may be creativity sessions on various issues, meetings,
workshops, seminars, open sessions, focus group
discussions, panel discussions, expert lectures and the like.
● The use of information communication technology (ICT)
should be encouraged and documented for various
purposes.
● The institute should expose the students to the world of
the work. The record of such activities should be
maintained.
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● The institute should develop knowledge management
system within the institute to make it learning
organization.
● All the faculty members should be encouraged to design
and give various types of assignments to the students.
These assignments could be class assignment, laboratory
assignment, library assignment, internet assignment,
home assignments and field assignments. These
assignments should be application, practice, problem
solving, innovation, survey and research based. These
assignments and their output should be documented for
further use.
● The institute should establish mini production centre in
the institute to encourage skills and competency
development process in the students.
● The institute should prepare a directory of industry,
research organisation resource persons, experts and
consultants for research, training and consultancy.
● Safety habits should be developed in students in
laboratories, workshops and industries during training.
Demonstrations, role play, simulation and action learning
should be predominantly used for developing safety habits.
Faculty members and technical staff should act as a role
model for this purpose.
● The institute should prepare plan for professional
development of students and implement it effectively. It
may include the cultural, sports and hobby related events.
● Apart from training in core competencies and professional
competencies development, every teacher should be trained
as mentor, coach, guide, facilitator, change agent and
feedback provider to students.
● The institute should create awareness on health care and
medical facilities and the contact number of doctor,
hospital, fire brigade should be displayed on prominent
places.
● The faculty members should be encouraged to develop,
maintain, use and improve item bank, case bank, problem
bank and learning resources bank at department level.
● The institute should promote internal academic audit at
department level and individual level. It could be formal
as well as informal with a focus on improving the quality
of academic activities.
● The institute should encourage the planned organization
of tutorials, remedial classes and bridge courses.
● The institute should enhance learning maturity of students
using various techniques such as formation and
functioning of study circles in all the departments. The
study circles should be encouraged to learn higher level
skills through real life problem solving approach. The
teachers should promote use of self learning and
multimedia packages.
● The institute should design and implement rope in and
rope out exercises. The objective of rope in should be
socialization of students and the objective of rope out
exercises should be preparing for better placement.
● The institute should encourage students publications such
as new paper, news letter, Journal, technical magazine
etc. it should be done at department level if the department
is offering more than two programmes.
● The institute should take feedback from alumni, industry,
parents and stakeholders and use it for improving the
performance of the institute.
● The institute should give more emphasis on class, library,
home, field and internet assignments in the schedule. It
should analyze the case studies, role play, mini projects
and major projects, progressive test and skill
demonstration tests of students for improving the quality
of learning. The assessment scheme should emphasize on
offering quality of constructive, positive and development
oriented feedback to the students.
● The curriculum for the programme should be updated,
refined and revised according to the needs of the industry.
It should be framed according to guidelines mentioned in
the NBA manual.
CONCLUSION
Technical institutes should conduct exercise for self assessing
the quality of its programmes on NBA criteria. Many institutes
think that NBA accreditation is documentation process so they
generate documents for NBA process. Generating document is
a frustrating experience for one and all in the institute. The
institutions should maintain significant and direct documents
which can be used as evidence for quality. They should do
adequate preparation before applying for NBA certification in
the light of NBA criteria, parameters and procedures. This
preparation may take six months of time. The institute should
create quality culture from NBA point of view during
preparation time. Everyone in the institute should be ready to
face the NBA team.
References
[1]. Manual for NBA Accreditation, January 2000, All India
Council for Technical Education, New Delhi.
[2]. Evaluation Guidelines for NBA Accreditation of
Undergraduate Engineering Programmes, National Board
of Accreditation, June 2009, New Delhi.
[3]. Gupta B. L. (2007) Governance and Management of
Technical Institutions, Concept Publishing Company,
New Delhi.
[4]. Gupta B. L. (2009) Excellence through Performance
Appraisal, Mahamaya Publishing House, New Delhi.
J. Engg. Sc. Mgmt. Ed. Vol-5 Issue-II (472–474)