Staff crunch at Naac mars performance

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (Naac), which has accredited more than 6,000 higher education institutes across the country, has just 24 staff members.

Though the number of sanctioned posts for the NAAC is 33, nine posts have been lying vacant. Though there are some employees hired on contract basis to manage the work load, and the assessment and accreditation process is done by experts and teams constituted by the Naac, the 24 staff members of the council handle all its paper work.

In view of this staff crunch, the new director of Naac, AN Rai, has taken it upon himself to expand the council.

“Naac is a small organisation, but it does not do everything on its own. There are assessors and experts who do jobs like visiting institutes for assessment. After taking charge, I went through the entire structure of the Naac and I have prioritised my concerns as immediate, mid-term concern and long term.
Expansion of the Naac is one of my immediate concerns,” said Rai.

He appreciated the employees of Naac for playing a major role in accrediting over 6,000 institutions across the country. Meanwhile, a proposal regarding filling up of all the sanctioned posts has been submitted to the University Grants Commission (UGC) as a part of the detailed project report (DPR). Once the UGC gives the green signal for recruitments, the Naac will hire more staff, said Rai.

The Naac staff members are posted zone-wise into North, South, East and West zones. The staff of each zone first send a letter of intention to all the institutes, following which, the institutional eligibility quality assessment is done. Then comes the self evaluation for interested institutions, which has to be communicated to the assessors and experts.