Accreditation a must for higher education institutes to get govt aid now

NEW DELHI: Accreditation will now be mandatory for higher education institutions (HEIs) to be eligible to receive financial assistance from the Centre.
Last month, the University Grants Commission (UGC) had made the National Assessment and Accreditation Council's (NAAC) grading a must for educational institutions to be eligible for recognition under Section 12B of the UGC Act, 1956. In addition, those unaccredited institutions who are already recognised under his section need to get the accreditation within five years to retain their eligibility to get central government grants.
TOI in May 2020 had reported that there were 600 unaccredited universities and 25,000 unaccredited colleges across the country. In February 2022, TOI reported there were only 15,000 higher education institutions accredited by NAAC. Recently, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education in its report had observed that "at present, barely 20% of the approximately 50,000 institutions go for formal accreditation," adding that "more efforts to offer incentives to bring institutions under accreditation system is the need of the hour" in order to guarantee a minimum benchmark of quality and standardisation.
As per Section 12B of the UGC Act, no institution will be eligible for grants given by the central government, the UGC, unless it satisfies the prescribed eligibility conditions which include providing adequate facilities.