India to become Washington Accord member

In a development that can only augur well for Indian engineers looking for employment overseas, India will become a full-fledged member of the Washington Accord by June this year. This will facilitate global recognition of Indian degrees and improve mobility of students and engineers.

The Washington Accord, signed in 1989, is an international agreement among bodies responsible for accrediting engineering degree programmes. It recognizes the substantial equivalency of programmes accredited by those bodies and recommends that graduates of programmes 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.  Some 16 countries are signatories to it.

The Indian government plans to set up the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority (NARA) to improve quality and meet international standards. "After acquiring full status of the Washington Accord, employability of Indian engineers in other countries will go up substantially. This will help our students pursuing technical education," explained Ashok Thakur, Secretary Higher Education.

According to Thakur, India has been a provisional member of the Washington Accord since 2007 and is confident to get the full-fledged status by June when a meeting of the body is due to take place. Two members have been deputed by the Washington Accord to help India align its accreditation norms with the best international practices.