Don't mislead people on accreditation status, NAAC warns institutions

NEW DELHI: The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has warned institutions against providing misleading or false information to the public and students about their accreditation status.
The council has issued cautionary notice and also displayed the warning on its website stating that the defaulter institutions would face action.
The NAAC is an accreditation agency to assess and accredit institutions of higher education including universities and deemed-to-be-universities in the country in form of grades.Accreditation has been made mandatory in 2015 by the University Grants Commission and linked it to the funding for the government run institutions.
The Council in its cautionary note stated that defaulting institutions will face suitable action. This information was shared by the Minister of State for HRD, Mahendra Nath Pandey in response to a written question in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
“Institutions accredited by NAAC, if found misleading or providing false information to misguide the public and students by projecting themselves as recipients of higher grading by NAAC and showing accredited institutions even after the validity period is over, are liable to face strict action by NAAC,” the response said.
“Further, to create public awareness, NAAC through articles and press releases has requested the stakeholders to ensure the authenticity and validity of the institutional grades by verifying the same from the website,” it added.
The UGC (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2016 provide that no institution deemed-to-be-university shall issue or publish any false or misleading advertisement for inducing students for taking admission in the institution.