Accreditation Reconsidered

Higher education is one of the most successful sectors in the nation at a time when much of the economy is struggling. Its quality has been buoyed by a long tradition of investment, both public and private, and by a healthy degree of autonomy from governmental control. America’s three governance innovations, citizen governing boards, shared governance, and accreditation, also have encouraged both quality and institutional autonomy in higher education. Accreditation has been a particularly important contributor to the institutional diversity and vitality of American colleges and universities. Most nations have a ministry of education that oversees institutions of higher education. But, such centralized control too often stifles innovation and quality. By contrast, the United States has long relied on private accreditors that use periodic peer assessments to support continuous quality improvement. Legal accreditation at the moment is out of step with most of higher education accreditation because of arbitrary limits placed on the participation of legal educators by the Council of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. It is time for legal education to have a system of accreditation that is grounded on peer assessment, dedicated to improving, and not just assessing, the quality of legal education, and guided by the same peer governance structure that has worked so well for the rest of American higher education

Accreditation and Accountability: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Accreditation and Accountability: Looking Back and Looking Ahead A CHEA Repor

Accreditation and related regulatory matters in the UK

About the book: This volume presents a rich account of the development of accreditation and evaluation in 20 European countries. The authors are leaders in the field and they have cooperated in this effort by writing richly different, often deep and insightful analyses of the situation in their country. The two editors have added a synopsis detailing the main trends, and sketching commonalities as well as contrasts in the developments across Europe. The book shows how accreditation is becoming a main mechanism in the steering of higher education all over Europe. The book is unique in its analysis of forces driving towards the spread of different models of accreditation in the emerging European Higher Education area. Readers will obtain an up-to-date picture of the state of affairs of accreditation in the framework of evaluation activities in Europe. They will gain an understanding of why accreditation and evaluation systems have evolved the way they have, and subsequently, they will obtain more realistic views on potentialities for European comparability and cooperation in this area. This volume is of interest to researchers and policy-making staff in higher education, especially those involved at the level of national systems for quality assurance, accreditation, internationalization and the Bologna process. It is also of interest to Master/PhD students in (higher) education management

A proposed guide for accreditation of teacher education in developing countries (A descriptive analytical study) (Kajian deskriptif analitikal tentang cadangan panduan akreditasi pendidikan guru di negara membangun)

High quality education can only be delivered by high quality institutions that are well established to meet with today’s quality challenges. Thus, the present study strongly advocates for accreditation of Teacher Education in developing countries. The study aims to introduce a guide for accrediting Teacher Education that is hoped to serve as a common reference authority for Teacher Education institutions in developing countries.This aim also embraces the following objectives: to explore the main concepts, objectives, methods and procedures of accrediting Teacher Education, to explain the rationales of accrediting Teacher Education, to illustrate international evaluation measures of accrediting Teacher Education, to explore some models of various focuses of Teacher Education accreditation and to present standards of Teacher Education accreditation proposed to be applicable in developing countries.The study used the descriptive analytical method that describes the phenomena and participates in its analysis. To achieve the optimum advantage of the proposed guide, each institute of Teacher Education should utilize it according to its own mission, vision, and objectives.This guide is perceived to be a pertinent platform for Teacher Education institutions in developing countries to exchange innovative ideas, issues of common concern and to foster accreditation network among them. Although developing countries have various histories, cultural backgrounds, colonial experiences and political orientations but these notwithstanding they have common basic philosophy, goals, objectives and challenges regarding quality education and its recognition. The guide has been made transparent in order to increase its flexibility, validity and portability

Is undergraduate programme accreditation influenced by educational public policy quality indicators? An exploratory study of the Chilean Higher Education quality assurance system

In Chile, as well as in most of Latin America, public policies for higher education have recently adopted a focus on quality assurance and accreditation systems. Uncertainty, however, still exists in terms of the quality assurance consistency in the current Chilean accreditation system, especially in terms of the relation between public policy quality indicators for higher education and their relation to accreditation outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to make a first explorative attempt to investigate the relationships between these indicators and the results of undergraduate programme accreditation. We hypothesised that the public policy quality indicators of first-year drop-out rate, employment at graduation and ratio of actual to expected time to graduation would be strongly correlated to undergraduate programme accreditation as well as largely explaining its accreditation-year variance. By means of correlation and multiple regression analyses, we found small-sized associations, being first-year drop-out the only significant predictor of programme accreditation, explaining a 9.4% of its variance. These results raise questions regarding the consistency between the aims of public policy for higher education and the current accreditation system. This study should be of value to policy makers, managers and curriculum developers in terms of this initial analysis of the consistency between quality indicators and the accreditation system. Further research is necessary to make a systematic and in-depth assessment of the impact of quality assurance mechanisms to provide better rationale for making important decisions such as when defining the characteristics of the accrediting institutions as well as for establishing effective ways to achieve the proposed public policy objectives

A Litmus Test of Academic Quality

The paper discusses the major issues connected with the accreditation procedures in higher education system in the U.S. The questions raised are as follows: what are the reliable and credible indicators of quality instruction that could be measured in the process of accreditation of higher education institutions? How does greater transparency in the accreditation process serve students and the public? What is the role that accreditors on federal and state levels can play in improving institutional accountability or changing institutional behaviour; and hence, what are the standards and implications of federal vs. state involvement in the accreditation process? What is accreditation’s role in addressing problems raised by arbitrary denial of transfer of credit? And what role does accreditation play in assessing distance education? The paper supports the idea that high quality instruction, academic freedom, accountability and transparency should go hand in hand. Agreement should be reached between different parties involved on what to consider as reliable and credible indicators of quality instruction and how to best measure them for the purposes of accreditation. The evaluation data should be made a public knowledge to increase transparency and serve student interests. And finally, preserving the unique balanced relationship and golden medium that exists between peer review and appropriate levels of government involvement in the process of accreditation would be the best option for further development of higher education in the U.S.accreditation; autonomy; accountability; regional and national standards of quality; federal and state funding of higher education; economic development; invetsment in human capital; economic growth; transparency; power struggles.

Dementia Education and Training in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire : An organisational audit commissioned by Health Education England

This audit established the range of dementia education available to NHS staff, social care staff and GPs across the two counties. It reports on current uptake of training, course content, assessment and accreditation of training. Future commissioning for dementia education and training might need to consider i) who in the workforce needs to be targeted, ii) whether or not there should be different sets of competencies for various professional groups, iii) accreditation that leads to recognised steps of progression; iv) joint commissioning of health and social care to deliver dementia education and trainin

Convergence and divergence dynamics in British and French business schools: how will the pressure for accreditation influence these dynamics?

This paper focuses on convergence and divergence dynamics among leading British and French business schools and explores how the pressure for accreditation influences these dynamics. We illustrate that despite historical differences in approaches to management education in Britain and France, these approaches have converged partly based on the influence of the American model of management education but more recently through the pursuit of accreditation, in particular AASCB and EQUIS. We explore these dynamics through the application of the resource-based view of the firm and institutional theory and suggest that whilst achieving accreditation is a necessary precursor for international competition, it is no longer a form of competitive advantage. The pursuit of accreditation has fostered a form of competitive mimicry reducing national distinctiveness. The resource-based view of the firm suggests that the top schools need a more heterogeneous approach that is not easily replicable if they are to outperform the competitors. Consequently, the convergence of management education in Britain and France will become a new impetus for divergence. We assert that future growth and competitive advantage might be better achieved through the reassertion of national, regional and local cultural characteristics

The Unfolding Tendency in the Federal Relationship to Private Accreditation in Higher Education

The government has come to rely on private organizations for accreditation in higher education. It created the Higher Education Amendments of 1992 Act, which provided for state postsecondary review entities to contract with the Department of Education