Hyderabad: Marking a paradigm shift, engineering colleges will henceforth be accredited as per the outcome-based policy of the National Board of Accreditation.

The outcome-based accreditation policy will judge tech colleges not on the basis of physical parameters like faculty and infrastructure, but on the basis of the performance of students and alumni.

NBA officials said all future accreditations would be carried out in accordance to this policy. It has been designed to conform to the standards of the Washington Accord that India signed last year.

Earlier, the practice was to accredit colleges based on the existing faculty, infrastructure, research work and such physical parameters.

But the shift has been introduced after the NBA, on behalf of India, signed the Washington Accord last year. This will allow other countries to recognise engineering graduate degrees awarded here and will be seen on par with those offered there.

Employment opportunities for engineering graduate are also expected to get a boost.

However, the accreditation process will differ slightly for tier-I institutions, premier central institutions like IITs, Central universities, deemed universities and autonomous institutions and tier II institutions, which include non-autonomous colleges. This is since the latter can’t formulate their own curriculum.

Dr G.K. Viswanadh, director of Academic Planning, JNTU-Hyderabad and NBA coordinator, said, “All accreditation will be according to the new outcome-based policy. Institutions which are already accredited will continue till the end of their accreditation period. After that they will have to get accredited under this new system.”