Rethinking Quality Metrics in Indian and Global Higher Education
Higher Education Policy | Accreditation | Nep 2020 & Institutional Reform
Institutions are no longer competing for stars — they are creating an ecosystem where students flourish with actual skills, values, and social good. NEP 2020 has humanised accreditation from a nightmare into a partner in growth.
The higher education system in India has been undergoing a quiet revolution through the National Education Policy 2020, with accreditation systems undergoing a paradigm shift that emphasises actual quality over marks. The days when a single letter grade determined the value of an institution are long gone; the emphasis now is on steady improvement, inclusiveness, and relevance to national agendas such as sustainability and employability. NEP’s vision to make accreditation universal, result-oriented, and supportive rather than punitive has had a cascading effect on bodies such as NAAC, NIRF, and NBA. Earlier, NAAC’s voluntary 7-point CGPA grading system resulted in over 70% of India’s 50,000+ HEIs going unaccredited, creating a quality deficit particularly acute in rural and affiliated colleges. The game-changer came in 2023–25 when NAAC introduced Binary Accreditation plus Maturity-Based Grading Levels. Institutions are now first assessed as Accredited or Not Accredited based on absolute criteria in education, research, governance, and infrastructure — ending unfair comparisons between resource-starved colleges and well-resourced ones. After accreditation, they progress through five Maturity Levels, each advancing with deeper analysis of innovation, learning outcomes, and community engagement. This step-ladder approach resembles mentoring more than evaluation, with a small arts college potentially beginning at Level 1 by addressing administrative deficiencies and progressing to Level 3 by incorporating skill-based learning, unlocking funding and autonomy as it advances.
The impact of NEP is most evident in the establishment of holistic parameters. Sustainability, a NEP concern under SDG integration, is now embedded in assessments: bonus points for solar roofs, waste management, and eco-curricula reward institutions investing in environmental responsibility. NIRF — the national ranking framework operating since 2015 — reflected this shift in its 2025 rankings by introducing SDG parameters to its Research & Professional Practice weightage category and deducting points for retracted publications to maintain integrity. The criteria across Teaching, Research, Outcomes, Inclusivity, and Perception are now more aligned with NEP’s core areas of multidisciplinary education, regional languages, and open degrees. The 2025 rankings, postponed due to verification campaigns but announced in September, showcased the growth of Tier-2 and Tier-3 colleges, demonstrating a genuine commitment to equity beyond the traditional prestige hierarchy. Complementing these rankings, NEP’s “One Nation, One Data” portal is reducing paperwork and introducing AI analytics that identify areas for improvement, making accreditation predictive rather than retrospective. From a human perspective this is transformative: teachers in smaller cities no longer find themselves drowning in unnecessary audits, and institutional data can finally serve as an instrument of improvement rather than a burden of compliance.
“NEP has humanised accreditation from a nightmare into a partner in growth. Institutions are no longer competing for stars — they are building an ecosystem where students flourish with actual skills, values, and a sense of social good.”
The effects of NEP’s reforms extend well beyond mechanics into a broader ecosystem of incentives and equity. Funding is channelled into high-maturity colleges through the RUSA 3.0 and PARAMARSH initiatives, encouraging and rewarding genuine institutional change. Graded autonomy allows Level 4 and 5 HEIs to recruit freely and launch new programmes without bureaucratic approval cycles, giving high-performing institutions the freedom to innovate. Inclusivity receives a structural boost: the new framework rewards enrolment gains among women, SC/ST students, and rural learners, partially offsetting the long-standing urban and resource advantage. The milestone of 15,000 binary accreditations achieved by 2025 offers early evidence that the architecture is working. Challenges remain: smaller HEIs struggle with data technology requirements and the costs of sustainability compliance, and delays in verification processes test institutional patience. Some critics raise concerns about over-centralisation through the national data portal, and the transition from a familiar grading culture to a maturity-based model demands significant mindset change from faculty and administrators alike. Yet the trajectory is clear. For social sciences academics in particular, this new environment is an invitation — NEP’s application-oriented approach demands research that addresses real-world concerns such as digital well-being, rural employability, and community entrepreneurship, areas where management scholarship has the most to offer. With 2026 approaching and a more precise set of SDG weightings expected in the next iteration of ranking frameworks, NEP will only deepen its integration into institutional life — potentially extending into AI ethics assessment, vocational centre evaluation, and community outreach metrics. The reform’s human-centric premise — that every college and university, regardless of size or location, carries the potential for excellence — represents a philosophical shift as significant as any structural one. India’s education system, once characterised by a narrow hierarchy of prestige and a quality deficit that stretched across thousands of unaccredited institutions, is now animated by a sense of purpose: the conviction that policy, thoughtfully designed and consistently applied, can catalyse actual change. The question now is not whether this transformation is under way, but how quickly institutions, faculty, students, and policymakers can build the capacity and culture required to realise its full promise.
” Rankings often neglect what students value — excellent teaching, inclusive opportunity, and meaningful learning outcomes. “
References
- Ministry of Education, Government of India. (2020). National Education Policy 2020. New Delhi: Ministry of Education.
- NAAC. (2023). Revised Accreditation Framework: Binary Accreditation and Maturity-Based Graded Levels. Bengaluru: National Assessment and Accreditation Council.
- NIRF. (2025). National Institutional Ranking Framework 2025: Methodology and Rankings. New Delhi: Ministry of Education.
- UGC. (2022). Guidelines for Graded Autonomy of Colleges and Universities under NEP 2020. New Delhi: University Grants Commission.
- RUSA. (2023). Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan 3.0: Policy Framework and Funding Guidelines. New Delhi: Ministry of Education.
- UNESCO. (2022). Reimagining Our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education. Paris: UNESCO. [Referenced for global alignment of NEP’s SDG-integrated accreditation reforms.]
About the Author
Prof. Chanda Gulati is a Professor of Management at the Prestige Institute of Management & Research (PIMR), Gwalior, with over 14 years of experience in academia and administration. She specializes in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behaviour. She currently serves as the Head of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) and Program Coordinator for the MBA (Business Analytics) program, and is an active member of the Academic Council and Board of Studies (Management). A university-approved Ph.D. guide, she has contributed extensively to research with more than 30 publications and 9 edited books to her credit. She is UGC-NET qualified and holds an MBA in Human Resource Management from VIT University. Prior to her academic career, she managed branch banking operations in compliance with RBI guidelines.