IITs agree to get accredited by NBA, will help widen global reach

After dawdling for years, the IITs have finally decided to get themselves accredited by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), the country’s premier accreditation body.

However, given their high academic standards, IITs have been given the freedom to carry out the review themselves and submit the report to NBA.

IITs agreeing for accreditation would help India become a part of the Washington Accord, an international agreement among accrediting agencies of 14 nations that recognises engineering degree programmes of each other.

One of the main criteria for any country to be part of the Accord is that its engineering degrees should be accredited.

[caption id=“attachment_111711” align=“alignright” width=“380”] ![IIT-Mumbai-AFP[1]](https://images.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/IIT-Mumbai-AFP1.jpg) IITs decide to get the NBA accreditation. Agencies.[/caption]HRD minister MM Pallam Raju told reporters, “The IITs would be subjecting themselves to an accreditation thereby setting a good example for other institutes. This will help us in getting the Washington Accord, which in turn will improve the mobility patterns of our engineers as their degrees would be recognised on a wider global scale.”

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India is now a provisional member of the Washington Accord. Once India becomes a member of the accord, it will ensure more mobility for the Indian engineers as their degrees would be recognised on a wider global platform.

The council also decided on a peer review system for the IITs and a constant review of the directors. The Board of Governors (BoG) of the respective IITs would review the performance of the Directors for more accountability. The Boards would submit their report to the Human Resource Development Ministry, reports The Hindu.

The HRD Minister also blamed the IITs for not being able to sell their brand in the global market as a result of which their global rankings aree low. He said it appeared that there was a gap in the information sought by global agencies and information provided to them.

The minister said that the global ranking of the IITs can be higher only with focus on augmenting research. The IIT research systems will work closely with national development goals such as defence, energy, urban development and manufacturing.