Washington, DC
June 21, 2007 

The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) becomes a member of the prestigious Washington Accord on June 21, 2007. The proposal for India’s membership was placed by the Indian delegation comprising of Prof. Damodar Acharya, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education, New Delhi, Shri Ravi Mathur, Joint Secretary (Technical), Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India and Prof. Prasad Krishna, Member Secretary, National Board of Accreditation (NBA) in the 8th biennial meeting of the International Engineering Meetings 2007 at Washington DC, USA. With this membership, NBA’s accreditation system gets an international recognition. 

The Washington Accord is an international agreement between registering bodies of member countries accrediting academic engineering programmes, at university level, leading to the practice of engineering at the full professional level. Such a comprehensive review shall be performed at intervals of not more than six years. In terms of this agreement each registering body accepts the accrediting processes of the others. The founding Signatories of the Accord in 1989 were: Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) – USA, Canadian Council of Professional Engineers (CCPE), Engineering Council (EC UK), Institution of Engineers of Ireland (IEI), Institution of Engineers, Australia (IEAust), and Institution of Professional Engineers, New Zealand (IPENZ). At present, the Washington Accord member countries are: Australia, USA, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong, Japan and provisional Members are: Germany, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Chinese Taipei. On June 21, 2007 India was elected as a provisional member along with Russia and Sri Lanka.

The Accord recognizes substantial equivalence of programmes accredited by those organizations and recommends that the graduates of accredited programmes in any of the signatory countries be recognized by the other countries as having met the academic requirements for entry into the practice of engineering.

NBA is the only authorized body in India 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 in Technical education including Engineering. The membership of India in Washington accord would facilitate mobility of engineering graduates and professionals at international levels. The graduates from NBA accredited programmes will be automatically accepted for education and employment purposes in member countries.

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. Credit system for flexibility and continuous evaluation for improved learning will have to be introduced. Focus on design, research and innovation has to increase. The signatory member countries would provide mentoring support. NBA will also participate in the accreditation activities of the member countries. At the end, India will be given full signatory status.

Membership of Washington Accord is recognition of the quality of engineering education offered by the country and an avenue to bring it into World Class category.