Thiruvananthapuram: The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), that evaluates colleges on the basis of academic quality and infrastructure, is now changing the accreditation process. As per the new reform, colleges will henceforth be assessed for quality of courses that it offers.

For this, the degree, honours and PG programmes offered by the various departments of the college will be assessed. However, the final framework of this reform is yet to be released. 

The current practice is to offer a grade to each institution after an elaborate assessment. In place of this, a binary assessment system (answering yes/no to specific questions) will come into place. There will be detailed questions to evaluate the infrastructure, programmes offered, placement and results of the colleges. The first phase of the binary accreditation will begin from the next academic year but will fully come into force only by December.

Binary accreditation is expected to be positive for Kerala as the four-year degree programmes will come into effect. The evaluation will take into consideration aspects like participation of students and teachers in curriculum design, flexibility of courses, emphasis on practical and job-oriented learning, online learning, internship, continuous evaluation system, grievance redressal system, learning management system, entrepreneurship development, etc,. If these conditions are not found to be satisfactory, colleges may be de-accredited.