The question is who certifies the certifier???  What are the criteria accreditation agencies used? Are they pushing the teaching quality or just overloading professors? I agree with prof. Thonse that the quality of the teaching must be measured in any way,  and that professors at university must be also good researchers, but in my experience the ways the acc agencies are implementing their job are not clearly warranting that, I'm sorry but is my opinion.

Quality Management is essential for our educational future. Quality is first and foremost the inner self-obligation to deliver works without mistakes; secondly, we need to develop an external (preventive) system to make that happen, but which is specific to our work. As Crosby opined: Quality is free. However, accreditation procedures can kill the freedom of quality.

No it's not possible India because most the accrediation and regulatary authorities in india are fake, its totally game of money and depend how much you can greet to them.

Historically government agencies regulated, authorized,  and approved education institutions. In USA it fell to the states some of which were too small to do a good job. They banded together and founded the regional accrediting agencies as non profit and non competing private organizations controlled by their members. The schools accredit each other through the associations.

In USA the accrediting associations have improved the quality of education and the working conditions and salaries of the faculties, but in doing so have rapidly raised the cost of education. Many people have looked for alternative education in overseas colleges and online programs. 

As in other countries the USA federal government department of education legitimizes the education system. Authorization is given to the private non profit accrediting agencies in a network system where each of the states ratifies the federal approvals in local law. Notice it is always the government agencies that give decisive legitimacy.

At times the regional accrediting agencies have appeared to operate as local monopolies, which would be illegal. In addition to the regional agencies there are a number of approved national agencies and a great number of specialized  professional accrediting agencies which to some extent deflect the monopolistic charges and in effect make the system legal. With out the national agencies competing locally the accrediting would become a system of regulated public utilities.

There is always a concern of quality and cost, in a balance or lack of balance. In USA the cost is now constrained by the ability to pay, causing the national commerce department to identify the high tuition as a long term systemic threat to the national economy. College graduates may work 20 to 30 years to pay off student loans at which time their other spending in the economy is greatly restricted. Even in middle age the average graduate in USA is reported to have nearly $40,000 remaining college debt to repay.

Defense of the system is offered by publishing the average debt, but not mentioning that a lot of older graduates are averaged in. Other defense is offered by listing 10 famous and highly rated colleges where tuition is low and graduates have small debt, possibly forgetting to mention that most students come from rich families or receive large scholarships. The average student is not accepted in those schools.

In my acquaintance some young engineering graduates at the Baccalaureate level have left college with $150,000 in debt. Other highly qualified graduates I've associated with decided to work rather than go to graduate school. My own college graduations, seven times occurred decades ago when tuition was low and the five colleges were highly rated. Then as now local community college is a good choice for many students, as it was for me, without which I might have continued driving a truck, fulfilling the expectations of my parents. 

For this question there is a mix of good and bad with not much in sight to improve it, except maybe an apprentice program. The students make their choices selecting the best they can and live with the results. At the moment of choice the students and their families should seek out the best available advice.

Some possibilities are earning college credit during high school, advanced standing and credits from examinations, scholarships, work study, and part time college and career together. In my second college experience the Co-Operative education program was active and it enabled me to pay nearly all of my own costs thorough a type of apprentice program working as an engineering technician and a computer systems analyst programmer some semesters and otherwise part time. Pay was good and that work experience has remained a great benefit through a long career. The apprentice program of Co-Op type brought me through to graduation almost debt free and only two years behind my age group.

Through a long career employers designated me as supervisor, mentor and champion of less experienced graduates, apprentices, and student interns. Some of them have remained in contact and occasionally ask for help. Those people added much value to the companies and received much value in return.

So maybe the answer to your question is that education systems rise and decline with good and bad features, while students choose the best part they can. Individuals as teachers and administrators make a lasting difference mitigating the problem areas and maximizing the quality, as my teachers did. Some of them are still living and in contact decades later. Teachers are known by the success of their students.

No, I do not see a causal link between accreditations and quality. Agreed the more established an accrediting body is, the more credible and the more impact but this opens up further questions such as established (complacent) body vs young (enthusiastic/motivated/serious...).

In the end a multitude of factors determines "quality" and so does your definition what quality actually is. Is it "students find a job" or is it they do well in exams....

In summary results matter and that is how often you hear a name in connection with X. Whether X is a good thing or not is another measure in itself.

Best

Roland

In my humble opinion, the current accreditation & quality assurance activities cannot ensure an improvement in the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in many parts of the world.

A scientific approach is to have professional well-qualified experienced team at the top in a given country to manage the accreditation & quality assurance activities in academic institutes . Question is: Is this team really available?

When scholars are spending lot of time & energy on paper work, to please the inspectors who will visit to monitor the preparedness of departments, this indicates that there is flaw in direction at this age of IT & electronic documentation.

Also, what is the real cost of these activities & are they actually worth it? Just few decades ago, there were no accreditation & quality assurance authorities and the universities were in better shapes than nowadays.

I partially agree with Professor Nizar's view. It is true that accreditation and quality assurance are not assuring quality of the graduates. Quality of the graduates depends on many factors like quality of students, faculty members, institution, etc.

Moreover, it results in waste of time, energy and resources. 

However, to certain extent it systematize the process. It assures that policies, procedures, guidelines and other regulatory requirements are implemented properly. 

It creates confidence in the mind of stake holders.

Over accreditation and quality assurance exercises are dangerous. 

I believe that more benefit from increasing the salaries of teachers and improve the overall culture and responsibility, rather than from investing for control.

It's double-edged. 'Enhance' is the wrong word here. Student, and peer, quality feedback is invaluable for pinpointing specific weak points in teaching and thus it can act as an invaluable aid in 'improving' teaching. But the same process can be wielded as a numbers game, or selected comments magnified, all contrary to 'enhancement'. It depends on the Agenda.

I fully agree with Professor CA. Cranston . I have real stories:There are universities which have some departments in which the staffs suffer from what I call "The Disease of Overtime Madness". One department in university (X) has instructors who teach subjects out of their specializations for the sake of getting extra money with staggering loads of > 20 credit hours/week. The other department in university (Y) has ~ 80 credit hours that require employing 7 persons but the staff refuses to add more in order to have a good amount of overtime money. Some department claimed having 8 members "they included a visitor and a resigned at their website !" while the actual number is 6 & this is also to hinder appointment of "fresh blood".

I am sure that there are very weak points in teaching in X & Y. The students can be "bribed" by high marks so as their feedback will be falsified.

In such cases, the accreditation & quality assurance people must step in to see the quality of the exams that are carried out by showing the exams to "neutral" experts. It will be better if the students in (X) & (Y) are tested by external examiners selected by a ministry of high education.   

This is a CATCH 22 SITUATION. The approach of accreditation agencies in many cases is like Police officer which is not helpful. The accrediation agencies should be first asked to acquire SIX Sigma certification. This will help. In number of cases the nonconfirmites pointed out by Accreditation agencies are oppurtunity for improvement. For eg how do you differentiate between MBA progrm and BBA program a question normlly asked during accreditation is food for thought.

The question is who certifies the certifier???  What are the criteria accreditation agencies used? Are they pushing the teaching quality or just overloading professors? I agree with prof. Thonse that the quality of the teaching must be measured in any way,  and that professors at university must be also good researchers, but in my experience the ways the acc agencies are implementing their job are not clearly warranting that, I'm sorry but is my opinion.

The question is: what is good vs poor quality of teaching at the university? Poor quality of teaching means, for instance, that professors teach older theories/problems/categories/explanations (sometimes from 14th-edition-american-handbooks), when omitting the newer problems & explanations from scientific articles. The phenomenon is visible, among others, in syllabi' literature references (the handbooks listed, the articles not). I have never seen that any formal body/committee judged such a practice as poor quality of university teaching. There are more aspects of poor quality teaching at universities, the formal bodies/committees are blind to.

This is really provocative question!

Let me expand it to: "Does ISO 9001 certification enhance the quality?"

The primary answer is "NO" as "ISO 9001:2015 sets out the criteria for a quality management system... (although this is not a requirement)..."

You can be certified but it does not mean that you have quality product... You just fulfill the criteria of the standard. However, it is better (but not necessary) to be certified as it sounds like: "We are working under certain rules!". In fact, these rules usually stay only on paper and here I definitely agree with @Fausto Galleto  

Back to you question...

Till a few hours ago I was busy with self-assessment report for accreditation (just to say that it is my 3rd procedure). A lot of paper work (not done yet), which costs me a lot of time that can be used for improving my lectures or read/write scientific article... or just spend it with my family ;)

Yes, I understand that it was to assure our department is covering certain standard... However, some of the criteria are nonsense (looks like written by people who have never been in university) that leads me to the logical question:

"Who certify the certifier?" (excellent answer from @Raquel Fernández-Cézar)

Unfortunately, in Bulgaria, National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency (NEAA) is independent body and it is NOT certified by any international organization (easily checked at https://www.neaa.government.bg).

Of course, NEEA is a member of European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) with accepted Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area... This membership means nothing to me... I am also member of professional organizations :)

Finally, I hope everyone knows my answer: NO (not in this way) and YES (in general)!

Once again, thank you Dr. Hawaldar for that question! This is a strike ;)

I strongly believe that accreditation and quality assurance activities yet has contributed anything to the quality of education and research in the universities. The result is a big loss in terms  of investment for the salaries of the accreditation and evaluation staff, time invested in inquiries and meetings, etc. These activities may be the need of the developed countries but not of the developing world because it is already suffering from energy, poverty and medical problems. Actually suchlike activities are creating complications for the developing countries. My tip all will be the choice of technique that are in tune with the conditions and environment of the place under consideration for sustainable development. It is unfortunate that that I dont see any appropriateness in attitudes of the control organizations. I end just with one example in context of the evaluation of research. Our HEC yet evaluates standard research on the basis of   of one SI Database indexing research contributions of highly technical basis research which does not target the problems of the developing countries.

Accreditation does not help as the body doing would have its own perspective which may not be relevant in the contemporary world.

Quality assurance activities would help if they were driven by leadership teams within the institutes in a participatory manner rather than an external accreditation body. 

Any rating should be done by students experiencing the system, and by peer institutes.

I agree with you Mita because it is a rational approach to secure quality assurance.

Yes.

Even the very idea that someone will accredit you has a positive and motivating effect. And sometimes even accreditation itself may be useful. However, accreditators are usually experienced people and can point to real problems and solutions.

 Academic accreditation & quality assurance of modern time need innovations and require an effective dynamics that meet the current trends of knowledge advancement and industrial market progression of a particular geographical area.

However this seems to be contrarily based on current Institutional accreditation body, taking the case study of my Country Ghana, run it accreditation processes mechanically hence under political influence, therefore work according to a legal designed procedures without factoring the impact effect and industrial market transformations over a period of time.

So it not surprise whereby graduate pass out and they are totally misaligned to the industrial market requirement, creating a high volume of unemployment. Because no private enterprise will employ a labour of liability unlike civil servants for governments services, with tax payers funds.

I think international accreditating bodies like AACSB for Business schools or EQUIS are more useful. Can somebody share their experience in this regards. thanks

No.

Lots of big name research schools with AACSB accreditation have Teaching Assistants (TAs) teach courses.  I taught several courses as a doctoral candidate at a "good" school and had not been given any supervision.

The best you can say is that top schools will be likely to select TAs who score better on standardized tests. LOL

Even at my school, we were counseled to "focus on getting published" rather than to focus on teaching as TAs.  I have attended faculty orientations at a big name school where the Department Chair told his faculty not to worry about their teaching -- and several were brand new doctoral recipients.

In another business school -- AACSB accredited, by the way -- the faculty member I spoke with acknowledged he had been teaching the same content for twenty years.  Not encouraging!

Now, with money scarce, MANY schools are hiring adjuncts rather than qualified faculty.  In most cases, those adjuncts lack a doctoral degree and/or have not stayed current by publishing.

So many teachers rely on textbooks with canned content  -- from major publishers -- but many of those books are written by academics with little or no "real world" experience.  Jeff Pfeffer from Stanford writes that the biggest cause of the failure of most businesses is that their managers apply conventional wisdom (The Human Equation).  Henry Mintzberg and many other scholars also note that most MBA Programs are out of touch with what employers really want.

Even the AACSB has flubbed up.  Because so many faculty do not have English as their native language, AACSB eliminated the need for MBA grads to be able to write  -- even though employers cite that weakness as the number one shortcoming of their employees.

(My experience is teaching in the Management area.)

Cam Caldwell

In India we do give importance to accreditation .National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)  is an autonomous body that assesses and accredits higher education Institutions  inIndia. This assures compliance to quality parameters and guides parents in selecting the institutions based on the gradings -A(Good) to D(Unsatisfactory). In my opinion an assessment by an independent and competent  body is always welcome to make a choice.

I AGREE WITH ANSWER Emmanuel Tweneboah Senzu 

Let us assume that  high quality educational programmes in terms of structure (inputs) and process (activities and procedures) will yield high quality outcome in terms of:

Then we have to identify parameters (criteria and indicators) to judge on structure, process and outcome. Definitely these parameters themselves need to be valid,  practical, feasible to measure and help in quantifying change or response to change.

Accreditation is a process to encourage educational institutions to practice all that and meet the standards put by international and may be national agencies.

For practical reasons, areas of interest were divided into a number of domains. Each requires certain actions and indicators. Institutions are assessed through the use of an agreed upon checklist.

All these are expected to stimulate educational leaders and faculties to really seek and work for high quality programmes and hence get accredited every now and then. 

In Hong Kong I understand accreditation is given on basis of Learning Outcomes of the Program. This is very practical and result oriented.

Dear Iqbal Thonse Hawaldar

Yes, I agree that Accreditation and Quality Assurance will improve the Competency Profile of graduates of technical and professional careers.

This together with the activities developed by Associations, Schools and Councils, to accredit the competence, updating and continuous education of its members, ensuring the quality of care and services to the population that requires them

regards

Jose Luis

Estimado Iqbal Thonse Hawaldar 

Si, estoy de acuerdo en que la Acreditación y Aseguramiento de la Calidad, mejorarán el Perfil de Competencias de egresados de carreras técnicas y profesionales.

Esto junto con las actividades que desarrollan Asociaciones, Colegios y Consejos, para acreditar la competencia, actualización y educación continua de sus afiliados, asegurando la calidad de atención y servicios a la población que los requiera

Saludos

José Luis

It will certainly improve the quality of education to certain extend....but teachers should be serious about the quality systems....it should not be just on paper....

Accreditation, in and of itself, does not guarantee the improvement of quality. It is necessary to assume quality as a management function, to establish a quality management system that contemplates process design, control methods and the definition of performance indicators. Achieve a culture towards quality and establish the improvement of quality as a standard of conduct in all services provided. The importance of quality management is that it allows universities to plan, organize, control and improve the activities they carry out to achieve the full satisfaction of the requirements, needs and expectations of students, business and society with education professional undergraduate, postgraduate training, scientific research and university extension. In Cuba there is a University System of Accreditation Programs (SUPRA). The objective of the evaluation is to accredit the quality, in correspondence with the mission or social function of the university. It is a process designed and conducted by representatives of the academic world. The external evaluation committee is made up of professionals, who hold teaching categories, with scientific degree and with vast experience in the different areas of knowledge, which guarantees their social recognition.

Absolutely not, my friend. If that is done well, it can help maintain the level of certain processes. But it can also become simple formal ornaments while the people forget the most important topics. I have seen it.

Las actividades de acreditación y aseguramiento de la calidad no beneficiarán directamente la calidad de la enseñanza, el aprendizaje y la evaluación. Algún efecto tendrán en la vertiente administrativa (gestión general) de la educación.

Lo que si tendría impacto mejorando la calidad de la educación, sería evitar la enseñanza y la cátedra, sustituyéndola por la promoción del aprendizaje, el aprendizaje centrado en el alumno, la identificación del estilo del aprendizaje de los alumnos para regulara el proceso educativo a sus capacidades y ritmos en el aprender; y finalmente, promover el aprendizaje del método de aprender a aprender, aprender para la vida y no sólo para la asignatura o en el aula.

Accreditation and quality assurance activities will not directly benefit the quality of teaching, learning and evaluation. Some effect on the administrative side of education.

What could improve the quality of education, avoid teaching and the chair, replace the education of learning, the identification of the learning style of the students to regulate the educational process to their capacities and rhythms in learning; and finally, promote the learning of the method of learning to learn, learn for life and not only for the subject or in the classroom.

José Luis García Vigil

In short.... Yes, I agree.

Accrediting generally doesn't create uniformity in colleges, not even for the same diploma from different colleges in the same district and accredited by the same agency. National professional accrediting agencies such as ABET for engineers do promote a uniform minimum standard, but colleges in the same state still have considerably different curriculums for the same diplomas..

Yes. I do agree as accreditation and re-accreditation do bring about the best in the teaching crew through its monitoring and evaluation processes.

Yes it does to some extent. For example in Nigeria, accreditation of academic programs makes all universities get updated. There are basic requirements that must be met to get either a partial or full accreditation. Full accreditation implies that an institution have met all prescribed conditions.

Sometimes the top ranked universities plays politics with it, yet it is the best to keep universities with best practices.

Results from an accreditation and quality assurance exercise are likely to be strong. Outcome oriented managers in the University/program may find that the recognition of the enlisted programs is much improved, and that there is much more attention on the program in both wanted and unwanted terms as most of these programs provide a publicity that is easy and untargeted, yet it is also available to the target audience.

Secondly, the results of the exercise, are also strong in more than publicity terms, and there one must read through my argument carefully, before making conclusions about the usefulness of the exercise and in fact one should read even more carefully if one is expecting an unequivocal and firm yes or no to such an exercise in one's mind before taking up the task. A quality assurance program, through its mandated objectives forces your programs into hoops and corners it believes in and thus makes rigid the focus of an incipient program trying to get recognized for its quality. Similarly if your program is actually renowned for its quality already outside the purview of the QA program, it may be challenged in changing some basic processes and outcomes of its program in order to win laurels from the QA inspection. These changes however may not always be too tough or unforeseen and sometimes or in fact more times than not, they may help bring an evenness and balance to your program or otherwise support your quest for better students, faculty and better rankings and outcomes (for a business program, stronger international placements) because of the reach of the chosen quality assurance program.

Some examples of such changes that usually help than distract from a successful QA are uniformity in grade disbursal, faculty qualification standards and ongoing training programs, as well as size of classes and curriculum requirements. The last one is a non controversial example of fears about the QA program brining in undesirable changes and it is unlikely that a QA program will be too rigid about your unique curriculum elements that make you an outstanding program. However there are likely to be disruptions in an established program, changing direction or becoming a vegetative me too from a QA exercise, while an incipient program may be served better by a blind adherence to the desired QA regimen in exchange for quick recognition and better outcomes for participants. if a QA program is designed well, it is likely that you achieve the better objectives of the exercise without undue exercise.

I guess so. Our institution has witnessed a number of positives because of these quality assurance activities.

Accreditation exercises are generic representing some kind of check sheet system which monitors that what you say is evidenced. So, it is the institution itself that realizes the quality through a strong intention to offer students realistic learning outcomes that match the job market. Quality systems streamlines processes supporting the learning and teaching exercise. However, it is up to the real intention of the University for either quality assurance or accreditation purposes! Just be a member of the elite who claim having accreditation and meanwhile manipulating internal policies, or for marketing and show off!! How many students will actually travel abroad among accredited institutions, accreditation does not guarantee acceptance!

I think its a good idea. Its working here in Nigeria

Yes I think it will

Last month several articles addressed the new requirements needed to modify the current Accreditation System to fit the dynamics of change affecting all the Learning experience in Higher Education. Innovation is the name of the game, to which both the Higher Education Institution and the Accrediting body have to accommodate to be current on the end user requirements.

See attached and enjoy the reading

Yes, it will definitely have positive impact on the quality of graduates and management of these institutions.

Yes, I believe it will affect positively if it is done in a professional and ethical way.

There must be serious revisions in the activities of the quality assurance team itself. It has not chalked many successes as its supposed to. It's more of a drain to the economy of a country.

The accreditation and quality assurance activities will enhance the quality of teaching, learning and assessment only if implemented in true spirit & sense, otherwise all are merely formalities.

Yes if carried out accordingly.

Absolutely yes if sincerity is upheld in accreditation/quality assurance exercises.

Accreditation and other quality assurance activities are very useful in maintaining standards by improving the quality of teaching and learning in many Universities. It is the period preceding such visits that Management of Universities will remember that they have not replaced or bought any new equipment for a Department. I strongly recommend that the practice should be continued. Other indirect assessment techniques like the National Eligibility Tests in India should also be adopted to assess the quality of University products.

Yes.

No

In México, the university evaluation system establishment was related to the worsening of labor conditions of professors. Before those systems, there was high and poor quality research. After those systems, there is still high and poor quality research. The crucial problem is the labor conditions of the whole academic staff.

It depends on the adopted university culture and teaching and learning model.

Yes, I agree. However it depends on institutions,leadership and culture.

Yes i do agree, The good quality system will definitely enhance the quality of teaching etc....

Yes but momentary

Provided guidelines are clear and policies are transparent, all within a developmental mind set for the institution.