Self-Instructional Module (e-Content)

COURSE: Accreditation for Diploma Engineering Programmes

Module 12: Preparation for Obtaining NBA

Dr. B. L. Gupta, Professor,

National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training & Research,
Shamla Hills, Bhopal M.P.INDIA 462002
 COURSE: Accreditation for Diploma Engineering Programmes

INDEX

12 Preparation for obtaining NBA

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 COURSE: Accreditation for Diploma Engineering Programmes

Module 12:
Preparation for Obtaining NBA Accreditation

Learning Outcomes:
1. State need for preparation for obtaining for NBA accreditation
2. Describe the process for preparation
3. Prepare action plan for filling and uploading eSAR

1.0 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 particular 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 revised the guidelines and formats for diploma engineering programmes. In new guidelines
it has re-strengthen the concepts of total quality management. These concepts are assessment of the
quality of 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. It has
tried to establish equivalence in assessment process with international standards for under graduate
programmes. This is a commendable work of the NBA and appreciated all over the country.

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 COURSE: Accreditation for Diploma Engineering Programmes

There is further 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.

2. PROCESS 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
study the NBA manual and its requirements. They 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 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 faculty and
staff should realize that it is the duty and responsibility of every one to contribute for quality of
programme in line with NBA requirements.
 The institute should participatevely 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. Values are promoted in individuals and teams.

 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 prospective 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 raging, empowerment of women,
encouraging physically challenged students and achieving excellence in academics etc

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 The institute should encourage the departments and individual faculty members and sections to
prepare plans 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 it 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.

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 COURSE: Accreditation for Diploma Engineering Programmes

 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 create opportunities for the students for feeling the thrill of world of the work
using various methods such as interaction, visit, training, and the like. The record of such activities
should be maintained.
 The institute should develop knowledge management system within the institute to make it learning
organization.
 The institute should design and document all processes and its implementation to maintain the
transparency in functioning.
 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 resource persons, experts and consultants for easy
approach and deployment.
 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 institute should publish academic calendar well in advance for further planning at department
and individual level.
 The faculty members should be encouraged to maintain record of programme educational
objectives, programme outcomes, programme specific outcomes, course outcomes, course plan,

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output of students work such as assignments, projects, role play, seminars, visits, practical,
interactions etc.
 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 encourage the development of learning to learn skills in students using variety
of methods, media, tools and techniques such as self learning, guided learning, assignments, field
work, model building, seminars, quiz, panel discussions, exposure visits, projects, creativity sessions,
interaction with eminent persons, participating in exhibitions and industrial training and the like.
 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, newsletter, 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 institute should network with industry and research organizations for students and faculty
training, learning material development, consultancy, continuing education and purposes of
common importance.
 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.

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3. Summary
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.

Glossary
Programme: Any diploma engineering education leading to award of diploma in specific engineering
discipline awarded by university or Board of Technical Education or Autonomous Polytechnic.

Industry advisory committee: According to NBA each department in the polytechnic should
constitute an industry advisory committee. In this committee there should be representatives from
industry and academics. This committee should guide the process of curriculum development, its
effective implementation and evaluation.
NBA Evaluation team: NBA constitutes a committee to assess the performance of the programme
against the self assessment report supplied by institute for the programme.
Activity 1: Action Plan for obtaining NBA Accreditation
Prepare the action plan to get the NBA accreditation for programmes of your polytechnic.
Name of the Polytechnic:
Number and name of programmes:
Number of programmes for which institute want to apply for NBA Accreditation
Sl. Activities Start Finish Resources Responsibility Budget
No. date date required
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Name and designation of Trainee

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REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

i). B. L. Gupta, Audit the vision of your institution, The Journal of Engineering Education, Pune, Vol.
XXI No. 4, April - June 2008. Pp 26-31.

ii). B. L. Gupta, Audit the plans of your institution, B. L. Gupta, The Journal of Engineering
Education, Pune, Vol. XXII No. 4, April, 2009. Pp 10-15.

iii). Dr. B. L. Gupta, Governance and management of technical institutions, First edition 2007,
Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi.

iv). NBA (2013) Accreditation Manual of Diploma Engineering Programmes, National Board of
Accreditation, New Delhi

v). NBA (2015) Format for Self Assessment Report of Diploma Engineering programmes, National
Board of Accreditation, New Delhi

vi). NBA (2013) Guidelines and operating practices for accreditation visit and evaluation of Diploma
Engineering Programmes, National Board of Accreditation, New Delhi

vii). NBA (2016) Evaluation guidelines for Diploma engineering programmes, National Board of
Accreditation, New Delhi (viii)NBA (2000) Manual for NBA Accreditation, National Board of
Accreditation, New Delhi

viii). Gupta B. L. (2009) Excellence through Performance Appraisal, Mahamaya Publishing House,
New Delhi.

ix). Gupta B. L. (2007) Governance and Management of Technical Institutions, Concept Publishing
Company, New Delhi.

SELF-INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL
i). Web resources
NBA (2015) Format for Self Assessment Report of Diploma Engineering programmes, National Board of
Accreditation, New Delhi
NBA (2016) Evaluation guidelines for Diploma engineering programmes, National Board of Accreditation,
New Delhi (viii)NBA (2000) Manual for NBA Accreditation, National Board of Accreditation, New Delhi

iii). Papers/Articles
(i) Preparation for obtaining NBA accreditation All India Vice Chancellors’ Conference from 12th to 14th
November, 2010, in Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune. The main theme of the Conference is
“Governance of Higher Education”. On this occasion the 85th Annual Meeting of the Association of
Indian Universities.

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8.0 DISCUSSION FORUM

TOPIC(S)
i). Describe briefly the process of preparation you would like to use in your institute.

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