New Delhi, Mar 8 (IANS): National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is continously improving and upgrading itself to make the assessment and accreditation of the educational intuitions more transparent and professional, the autonomous body under the University Grants commission has said.

The statement follows the resignation of NAAC president Bhushan Patvardhan over allegations of few Universities engaging in wrong practices to achieve high grading.

Some serious allegations were raised by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council 'NAAC' chairman Bhushan Patvardhan. It has been alleged that some universities adopted wrong methods for grading. Bhushan Patwardhan resigned from his post saying that his resignation would protect the 'sanctity of the post' .

Last month, Bhushan Patwardhan had written a few letters to the UGC chairman. In one of the letters, he has alleged that 'suspicious grades' have been obtained in some higher educational institutions due to personal selfishness and corruption. He had also expressed his desire to resign from the post.

Now in an official communication, NAAC said that the selection of assessors as Peer Team members for qualitative assessment are based on four criteria. First one is the type of higher educational institutions (HEIS) to be accredited.

Second, types of programs and courses offered under each program by HEIS.

Third, the constitution of the Peer Team panel generated by the coordinators in the system ensures the relevance of specialization of experts vis-A-vis HEIS. Fourth, acceptance of the invitation by the Peer Team experts.A

NAAC director SC Sharma said that NAAC ensures that the Peer Team experts are not from the same state of HEIS. The NAAC also follows a due protocol for designating different portfolios of the Peer Team that is the Chairperson, Member Coordinator and Member(s). The experts have to give in writing a declaration on code of conduct, ethical standards and no conflict of interest statement before proceeding on Peer Team visit.

NAAC officials said that the University Grants Commission has constituted committees to deal with the issues related to the Accreditation of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs).