Friday, June 13, 2014

India signs #Washington Accord for global recognition of engg.degree prog.

In a major boost to technical education & engineering programs, India today joined a select group of 17 countries who are permanent signatories of the Washington Accord (WA). The meeting of the International Engineering Alliance of WA member countries met in Wellington, New Zealand this morning and gave India the signatory status with effect from Friday. National Board of Accreditation (NBA) has shortlisted 220-odd engineering colleges as Tier-I institutes whose undergraduate engineering programme is in tune with what is required under the Accord.NBA has introduced a new process, parameters and criteria for accreditation. These are in line with the best international practices.
Union Minster of Human Resource Development Smt Smriti Zubin Irani has congratulated the officials of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the National Board of Accreditation, and said that “this will ensure highest quality assurance standards to be implemented in our technical and engineering programmes and provide global mobility to our engineering graduates.” She said that “Graduates having degrees, which have been so accredited, would have substantial international equivalence of their achievement levels across the signatory nations. This will substantially enhance their employment opportunities around the world”.


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 Washington Accord was signed by the National Board of Accreditation, India, an accrediting body with the mandate for accreditation of engineering and other technical programs at all levels in the country and making technical education outcome based.

The International Engineering Alliance (IEA), Secretariat of the Washington Accord, sent a Review Team in December 2013 and January 2014, to carry out a comprehensive review and audit of NBA accreditation systems and practices. The Review team submitted its report in March 2014.

The National Board of Accreditation (NBA), India was initially established by AICTE (All India Council of Technical Education) under section 10(u) of AICTE act, in the year 1994, for periodic evaluations of technical institutions & programmes basis according to specified norms and standards as recommended by AICTE council.