Odisha is one of the states with the lowest coverage of higher education institutions certified by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, according to a study released by the Higher Education Department on Thursday, May 25. (NAAC). According to the report, seven public universities and 25% of the state’s 1,024 schools total have earned NAAC accreditation.
What does the data suggest?
Although having a low accreditation, the state performs better than nine others, including Kerala (20%), Bihar (19%), Chhattisgarh (17%), Uttarakhand (14%) and Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana (12%), as well as Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan (both 8 per cent).
According to official figures, 290 colleges and seven universities out of the 1,024 degree-granting institutions and 15 universities in the state have received NAAC accreditation thus far, primarily with B and C grades.
Colleges assert that the standards for NAAC accreditation have increased
According to standards, universities or colleges that have completed six years of existence or had at least two batches of graduated students are required to apply for NAAC accreditation. The NAAC grades of many of these state institutions expired way back in 2017, but the reassessment process only began six months ago.
Sources claim that the previous review process is now stricter than it was before to COVID. The colleges claim that it is challenging for the institutes to approach the council for evaluation due to the lack of faculty, which is the main cause of various bottlenecks in higher education. The NAAC changed to an online style of examination in 2017.
Government initiatives
To be eligible to apply for funds through the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) programme, you must have an NAAC grade. According to officials, the Odisha State Higher Educational Council has begun assisting colleges and universities in obtaining NAAC certification and taking part in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking in a scheduled manner following the pandemic.
The department offers academics and public educational institutions incentives to become NAAC-accredited, and accredited universities receive higher grants than non-accredited institutions.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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