Chapter introduction Preamble

Co-Operation with International Agencies

1. 
   Washington Accord Membership
   

The Washington Accord, signed in 1989, is an international agreement among bodies responsible for accrediting engineering degree programs. It recognizes the substantial equivalency of programs accredited by those bodies and recommends that graduates of programs accredited by any of the signatory bodies be recognized by the other bodies as having met the academic requirements for entry to the practice of engineering. The signatories as of 2007 are Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, USA, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan and South Korea.

National Board of Accreditation (NBA) is an autonomous body established by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), a statutory body for regulation of technical education in India. The AICTE Act, 1987 was passed by the Parliament, to provide for the establishment of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) with a view to ensure proper planning and coordinated development of the Technical Education System throughout the Country, qualitative improvement of such education in relation to planned quantitative growth and the regulation and proper maintenance of norms and standards in the Technical Education System. At this time, NBA is the only authorized body in the Country entrusted with the task of undertaking accreditation of technical education programmes. All programmes on technical education including those offered by University Departments are accredited by NBA. The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) evaluates the quality of programmes offered by educational institutions from Diploma to the Postgraduate levels of education. Therefore, the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) desires to be a signatory to the Accord for ensuring cross border mobility of our Engineering Graduates. The membership of the NBA in Washington accord would facilitate easy exchange of ideas, mobility of engineering students and professionals at international levels.

As a part of membership procedure for Washington Accord, NBA had submitted its application with letter of support from three signatories. On the invitation of Washington Accord Secretariat, Prof. Damodar Acharya, Chairman, AICTE, Shri Ravi Mathur, Joint Secretary (T), MHRD, Govt. of India and Prof. Prasad Krishna, Member Secretary, National Board of Accreditation (NBA) attended the 8^th Biennial Meeting of the International Engineering Meetings conducted at Washington DC during 17-22 June, 2007. India was invited to give a presentation on the standards, criteria, policies and procedures of the National Board of Accreditation. Finally, NBA of AICTE was accorded provisional membership of the Washington Accord in the Meeting. The signatories to the Washington Accord look forward to working with NBA-AICTE over the next few years, benchmarking best practices, collaborating in accreditation process development, and in establishing the experience required for full membership. By conferring provisional status, the signatories have indicated their confidence that NBA-AICTE has the potential capability to reach full signatory status.
With this membership, NBA’s accreditation system gets international recognition. The country is given two years of time to bring its Academic Programmes, curriculum and syllabus, examination and evaluation system to the International level and revise its accreditation system to make it fully outcome based. The deadline for considering NBA’s application for full membership in the 9^th Biennial Meeting would be June 2009.

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