Abstract:

School Education in India has evolved immensely in the current decade. School Quality Assessment and Accreditation – SQAA is a quality initiative proposed by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to provide global parameters of attainment as standards in schools affiliated to it. The CBSE aspires to lay down a set of standards and best practices as paradigms for attaining the best benchmark in an individual institution for the upliftment of learning outcomes in the domain of school education imparted to children.
The CBSE School Quality Assessment and Accreditations (SQAA) is holistic as it covers all aspects of a school functioning, namely its Scholastic and Co-scholastic Domains, Infrastructural Areas, Human Resources, Management and Administration, Leadership and Beneficiary Satisfaction. These Seven Domains identified by CBSE infact focus on the seven areas and processes of developing the capabilities of school holistically. It is expected that by participating in the process of accreditation the institutions will raise their bar of excellence and move towards continuous improvement in terms of quality.
SQAA is expected to bring a paradigm shift in quality scenario of Indian Schools. The implementation of a new practice in its real essence is a big challenge for CBSE which has approximately 14,000 schools affiliated to it, spread across all Indian states and 25 countries. This research paper is an attempt to analyse the expected impact of SQAA to provide quality benchmarks in the concept, establishment and running of effective systems within an institution in accordance with changing socio-economic and cultural contexts and also identify the challenges in its implementation. As a part of methodology, the empirical research was conducted with CBSE school academicians where it is proposed to implement SQAA through questionnaire and personal interviews. The learning inferred from the study would further encourage CBSE to administer the SQAA reform across its affiliated schools and overcome the challenges that may hamper its effective administration.

Keywords:

Accreditation, education, quality benchmarks, excellence, reform, standards.