Complete Guide to the National Board of Accreditation (NBA Accreditation)

“The colleges offering engineering courses colleges need to complete their accreditation process before 2022 to meet the quality of higher education.” - All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

Just like the NAAC Accreditation, AICTE has made the “NBA” - National Board of Accreditation as the mandate to ensure quality education in India. Therefore, educators running higher education institutions (HEIs) need to gear up and make consistent efforts to upgrade their teaching-learning processes and offer the best provisions to empower students.

This complete guide to the National Board of Accreditation will help you understand the: what’s, how’s, and why’s of the NBA process to achieve the accreditation seamlessly.

NBA is committed to offering:

• Reliable & Credible System of Accreditation
• Transparent System for Quality Education

As an effort to make the accreditation internationally competent, the NBA has become a permanent signatory member of the Washington Accord (WA) in 2014 and follows their quality parameters to ensure the best student outcomes.

What is the Vision & Mission of the NBA?

As stated by the NBA Accreditation Committee, the vision of the NBA is -

“To be an accrediting agency of international standard by ensuring the highest degree of credibility in the assurance of quality and relevance to professional education and come up to the expectations of its stakeholder's viz., academicians, corporates, educational institutions, government, industry, regulators, students and their parents.”

In a nutshell, the NBA wants to nurture & prepare students with the best educational values, so that they can represent their knowledge internationally & reach better professional heights.

The Mission of the NBA

The mission of the NBA is to enable faculty to improve their teaching methodology by offering detailed & insightful technical knowledge and help students become high-quality professionals in their future.

Why Should Higher Education Institutions Aim for NBA Accreditation?

Being accredited by the NBA Accreditation agency can be a game-changer for HEIs. Here are the major reasons that make the NBA worth-considering.

• Internationally reputed agency for accreditation (WA Signatory Member)
• Enables HEIs to overcome the teaching-learning gaps
• Outcome based education approach for better results
• Enhances the quality of education with a continuous improvement
• Boosts confidence of students, administrator, faculty, and every stakeholder involved
• Polishes the professional skills of students

Thus, the NBA is like a “hallmark for quality education”!

Therefore, any student who has studied from the NBA accredited institution gets a better chance of placement in renowned organizations. The NBA department recommends HEIs to follow the Outcome Based Education System (OBE) to ensure the best quality of education.

To learn more about the OBE system and how it can be helpful, you can refer to the detailed guide to OBE here - The Beginner’s Guide To Outcome-Based Education (OBE System).

NBA Accreditation Hierarchy

Getting NBA Accreditation is surely a great achievement for any HEI.

However, the process of getting NBA Accreditation is not as simple as it may seem to be. The standards and guidelines of the NBA are set up by an experienced peer review group that has the following authorities –

• GC (General Counsel)
• EC (The Executive Committee)
• AAC (academic Advisory Committee)

These members closely evaluate all the parameters before their final decision.

NBA Accreditation Process

NBA accreditation can be successfully completed by following the given crucial steps.

Eligibility Criteria & Steps to Follow for Getting Accredited by the NBA

Here is a step-by-step explanation of the NBA Accreditation process & its eligibility criteria.

#1: Understanding NBA Readiness

HEIs need to check NBA readiness by considering the given parameters.

Institution: Check whether your institution falls under the following eligible category of institutions -

• Computer Applications
• Hospitality
• Tourism
• Architecture
• Pharmacy
• Applied Arts and Crafts
• Engineering & Technical Branches
• Management

AICTE Approval: A minimum of two batches must have successfully passed before you consider NBA accreditation. And for institutions offering management courses, the numbers of batches required are three.

The NBA doesn’t allow part-time courses. Only full-time courses are eligible.

#2: NBA Registration on Website

As an eligible HEI, you need to visit the official eNBA portal and fill the registration form along with the registration fees. Once it’s done, you need to generate the application and pay 10% of the total amount of the accreditation fees.

If you meet the NBA pre-qualifier requirements such as successful completion of at least 2 batches previously, qualified faculty with Ph.D. experience, standard educational processes, good infra-structure, accurate MIS reports & proof backing up the information, student performance records, etc then proceed with further steps. If not, you need to try again the next time.

#3: Creation of the SAR -Self Assessment Report

SAR report plays a vital decisive role in the NBA accreditation.

To ensure the entire process goes smoothly, you need to prepare an error-free SAR report with precise institutional data.

The report should be based on real facts strictly and you must have documents to back up the data. Otherwise, the NBA committee may disqualify you from the accreditation process.

Here are the criteria and weightage distributed to undergraduate engineering programs.

#4: Submitting the SAR

Once you generate the error-free SAR report, you need to submit it on the website for further process. To make the report generation journey easier, you can opt for MasterSoft’s Accreditation Data Management System.

It will compile all your data and records and generate an error-free, 100% accurate SAR report that you could submit during the accreditation process and improve your chances of further selection & eventually, the NBA accreditation!

#5: Applying for the NBA Accreditation

You need to log in to the eNBA portal with the previously generated user Id and password and pay the remaining 90% of the total accreditation fees. You also need to mention 3 dates for the NBA onsite peer team visit.

#6: NBA Peer Team Members Visit the Campus for Evaluation

As a part of the evaluation, the NBA peer team will visit your higher education institution on one of the dates that you had mentioned while submitting the application. The visit may extend to 2-3 days wherein the evaluators will verify the information submitted by you in the report.

You must keep all the documents and reports ready beforehand and ensure a smooth scrutiny process. The NBA committee generally records the video of an entire visit, checks proof of all produced records, and arranges a brief discussion with various stakeholders- like faculty, student, alumni, parents to analyze the “quality education” parameter.

#7: Submission of Report & Final Recommendation by EAC

The NBA peer team members will submit their observations in terms of a report to the Evaluation and Accreditation Committee - EAC. The EAC members carefully analyze the report and provide a recommendation letter to the Academic Advisory Committee for the final decision-making.

#8: Academic Advisory Committee’s Decision

Right from checking the document & reports submitted by the HEIs to the recommendation of EAC, the Academic Advisory Committee (AAC) reviews everything and decides whether to give accreditation or not.

#9: Possible Outcomes

Based on the decision of the AAC, if everything falls in line, your institution may get -

• NBA Accreditation for 3 years
• NBA Accreditation for 6 years

Or, you may not get the NBA accreditation!

NBA Grievance Redressal

If you feel unsatisfied with the entire evaluation process, you may ask for another review by challenging the decision of the NBA committee.

You get 30 days to request the same.

Your application for review will be evaluated by the Appellate Committee (AC). And the final decision will be conveyed to the institution.

How MasterSoft's Accreditation Data Management Solution can Help HEIs in Easing Data Management for NBA Accreditation?

Designed & developed to help higher education institutions manage their institutional data and generate error-free accreditation reports, MasterSoft’s Accreditation Data Management System is a comprehensive solution that can help you attain accreditation successfully.

As the NBA committee has mentioned that error-free reports are mandatory to get accreditation, the MasterSoft ERP solution can take you one step closer.

The Accreditation data management system offers a complete detailed analysis of the data & auto-fetching data feature that helps you compile, store, extract, and handle data from a centralized platform. The benefits of MasterSoft ERP go beyond accreditation data management. It also helps your institution create a positive impact on stakeholders by streamlining your daily work processes and accelerating quality education.

Contact us for more details...!