Based on its understanding of current educational issues, international trends and national policies, and backed by extensive field experience, BJS has evolved an assessment and accreditation system - BJS-SAA (BJS - School Assessment and Accreditation). This system assesses schools for a level of performance, integrity, and quality that earns the confidence of all stakeholders - government, the management, the school head, the teaching and non-teaching staff, and more importantly of students, parents, and the community as a whole.
"The belief that quality goes with privilege is clearly irreconcilable with the vision of participatory democracy that India upholds and practices in the political sphere. Its practice in the sphere of education demands that the education available to all children in different regions and sections of society has a comparable quality" (Source: The National Curriculum Framework, 2005). This aspect of ensuring educational equity through quality in the entire spectrum of schools and in education from pre-primary to higher education is slowly being acknowledged and efforts are being channelized in this direction. However, considering the magnitude of the problem in terms of the sheer number of schools in India, these efforts still need to go a long way to create a visible impact in the context of education reform in India especially at the school level.
To bring about improvement in quality the baseline assessment of quality must be done. Quality of education, per se can be evaluated in various ways but institutional accreditation is one of the most structured and comprehensive ways of doing so. The purpose of assessment and accreditation in any sphere is not just to gauge the current levels of performance of a system but to act as an enabler for continuous improvement of the same system.
BJS has gained valuable experience since it started implementing EDUQIP from 2002. It has the unparalleled exposure of working with schools of each and every profile all across the country (States and Union territories alike) and studying the government education framework very minutely. BJS has constantly worked towards improvement in its programs, based on prior experiences and feedback obtained from the stakeholders. All the programs have received full support and co-operation by the government stakeholders and have been lauded by the same.
BJS-School Assessment and Accreditation (BJS-SAA) has leveraged the exhaustive field and domain level expertise of its team to undertake a pre-design academic study to understand and state school educational requirements and quality standards. BJS-SAA provides an end-to-end solution that is a win- win proposition for all the stakeholders participating in the process.
BJS-SAA design and development team is a rich combination of experience levels and diverse backgrounds. BJS-SAA team comprises former Senior Government Education Officers, Quality Management Specialists, Educationists, Researchers, and the enthusiastic field crusaders who have worked in rural, tribal, local body schools to drive quality education initiatives.BJS has appointed a panel of national level academicians from resource institutions such as NUEPA and NCERT, educationists, and statistical experts to review the design at every stage.
The BJS-SAA system consists of two tiers, namely, Profile and Process. Both the tiers cover a separate set of areas and parameters. Whereas the Profile parameters contribute to the infrastructure and physical environment of the school, the Process parameters contribute to school performance. Thus the accreditation decision, which is an affirmation of school quality, is dependent on the successful interplay of the processes in the school in conjunction with profile of the school.
In order to address the constraints felt by the government in managing the scale of operations for covering maximum number of government as well as private schools in a reasonable timeframe and to ensure cost affordability and effectiveness, BJS-SAA offers a choice of three partnership options, which bring with them well-developed frameworks, tools, methodologies, and technology support. These three partnership options are: the BJS SAA framework (ready to implement); the customized BJS SAA framework and a completely new framework. In all these options, BJS offers implementation support, mentoring, training, capacity building, software development and documentation to the nodal agency.
BJS maintains its stance of operating within the existing governmental framework and bringing about a change in school education with optimal utilization of the existing teaching staff in schools, the present syllabus and the prevalent educational system. Since BJS targets a large canvas of schools it has ensured that the BJS accreditation system is practical, realistic and versatile, applicable to all profiles of schools ranging from one-room schools in the remotest rural areas to even the most elite schools of the country.
Based on its understanding of current educational issues, international trends and national policies, and backed by extensive field experience, BJS has evolved an assessment and accreditation system - BJS-SAA (BJS - School Assessment and Accreditation). This system assesses schools for a level of performance, integrity, and quality that earns the confidence of all stakeholders - government, the management, the school head, the teaching and non-teaching staff, and more importantly of students, parents, and the community as a whole.
"The belief that quality goes with privilege is clearly irreconcilable with the vision of participatory democracy that India upholds and practices in the political sphere. Its practice in the sphere of education demands that the education available to all children in different regions and sections of society has a comparable quality" (Source: The National Curriculum Framework, 2005). This aspect of ensuring educational equity through quality in the entire spectrum of schools and in education from pre-primary to higher education is slowly being acknowledged and efforts are being channelized in this direction. However, considering the magnitude of the problem in terms of the sheer number of schools in India, these efforts still need to go a long way to create a visible impact in the context of education reform in India especially at the school level.
To bring about improvement in quality the baseline assessment of quality must be done. Quality of education, per se can be evaluated in various ways but institutional accreditation is one of the most structured and comprehensive ways of doing so. The purpose of assessment and accreditation in any sphere is not just to gauge the current levels of performance of a system but to act as an enabler for continuous improvement of the same system.
BJS has gained valuable experience since it started implementing EDUQIP from 2002. It has the unparalleled exposure of working with schools of each and every profile all across the country (States and Union territories alike) and studying the government education framework very minutely. BJS has constantly worked towards improvement in its programs, based on prior experiences and feedback obtained from the stakeholders. All the programs have received full support and co-operation by the government stakeholders and have been lauded by the same.
BJS-School Assessment and Accreditation (BJS-SAA) has leveraged the exhaustive field and domain level expertise of its team to undertake a pre-design academic study to understand and state school educational requirements and quality standards. BJS-SAA provides an end-to-end solution that is a win- win proposition for all the stakeholders participating in the process.
BJS-SAA design and development team is a rich combination of experience levels and diverse backgrounds. BJS-SAA team comprises former Senior Government Education Officers, Quality Management Specialists, Educationists, Researchers, and the enthusiastic field crusaders who have worked in rural, tribal, local body schools to drive quality education initiatives.BJS has appointed a panel of national level academicians from resource institutions such as NUEPA and NCERT, educationists, and statistical experts to review the design at every stage.
The BJS-SAA system consists of two tiers, namely, Profile and Process. Both the tiers cover a separate set of areas and parameters. Whereas the Profile parameters contribute to the infrastructure and physical environment of the school, the Process parameters contribute to school performance. Thus the accreditation decision, which is an affirmation of school quality, is dependent on the successful interplay of the processes in the school in conjunction with profile of the school.
In order to address the constraints felt by the government in managing the scale of operations for covering maximum number of government as well as private schools in a reasonable timeframe and to ensure cost affordability and effectiveness, BJS-SAA offers a choice of three partnership options, which bring with them well-developed frameworks, tools, methodologies, and technology support. These three partnership options are: the BJS SAA framework (ready to implement); the customized BJS SAA framework and a completely new framework. In all these options, BJS offers implementation support, mentoring, training, capacity building, software development and documentation to the nodal agency.
BJS maintains its stance of operating within the existing governmental framework and bringing about a change in school education with optimal utilization of the existing teaching staff in schools, the present syllabus and the prevalent educational system. Since BJS targets a large canvas of schools it has ensured that the BJS accreditation system is practical, realistic and versatile, applicable to all profiles of schools ranging from one-room schools in the remotest rural areas to even the most elite schools of the country.
national concern
The quality of school education is a major concern but
to bring about improvement in quality, baseline assessment of quality must be done
institutional accreditation is one of the most structured and comprehensive ways of determining quality
accreditation of schools is an internationally accepted practice to ensure quality of education
accreditation for schools is not yet established as a concept and practice in India
the scale of the task of accrediting schools in India is indeed a major challenge
social sensitivity
recognizing the need for accreditation as a concept to be extended to school education
believing that the purpose of assessment and accreditation is not just to gauge the current levels of performance of schools but to act as an enabler for continuous improvement
understanding the constraints on government machinery to implement school accreditation
developmental innovation
accreditation and assessment of schools is a pioneering endeavor in the Indian context
robust yet flexible framework to suit requirements of different state governments or nodal agencies like boards
choice of questionnaire-based and evidence-based models for authentic, verifiable, concrete information and compliance status of current practices in the schools
tools and integrated reports for decision support on resource allocation for policy makers
participatory process
design of framework influenced by extensive work carried out by BJS in the field of Education since 1993 in conjunction with various Governments and nodal agencies
acceptance from all levels: policy makers, nodal agencies, principals and teachers
includes inputs from school principals, BRCCs, CRCCs, District Education Officers, parents, and teachers at the grass roots level
tools/instruments designed in consultation with all stakeholders
sustainable solutions
effective and optimal implementation schedule despite the exhaustive assessment coverage
multiple partnership options designed to fulfill specific needs of nodal agencies
multi-layered implementation support in all options
post-accreditation support for the roadmap defined by key stakeholders
meaningful impact
more than 4,000 schools have been accredited
well received, appreciated and accepted across various States and Union Territories
Senior Goa government officials as well as the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti acknowledge the efforts of BJS in the schools under their jurisdiction
invitation and request for implementation from various educational institutions and state governments
Assessment and Accreditation Base Document
An extract from the base document...
Quality is a positive and dynamic idea, achievable by design with meaningful investment. The quality "journey" is characterized by a customer-focused approach to continuous improvement of process, products and services through an independent system of planning, implementing, evaluating and decision. Quality is thus a progressive attribute. It moves from one level to another for a given standard.
BJS Accreditation System is influenced by:
World Declaration on Education for All and Dakar Framework
