KPI of the Day – State Gov: % Nationally accredited study programs

Written by Andrei Costea on April 15, 2020. Posted in News

Definition

Measures the percentage of study programs offered by the educational institution that holds a national accreditation.

Purpose

To indicate the level of nationally accredited programs, as a high level of such programs can bring a competitive advantage to the educational institution. It can also indicate a minimum standard for the educational programs on offer.

Recommendations

Having national educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process, under which services and operations of an educational institution or program are evaluated by an external body, to determine if applicable standards are met. Should standards be met, an accredited status is granted by the agency.

Accreditation policies can be applied differently either at institutional level, or for individual or specialized programs. % Nationally accredited study programs is employed for measuring the performance or strategic plan of specific functional areas in the education industry, such as individual studies or programs.

The entity entrusted by governments to give accreditation to educational programs and institutions can vary from country to country: in most cases, this task falls under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. In other cases, such as the United States, accreditation is conducted independently by autonomous institutions, associations, foundation, councils etc.

Regardless of the authority granting it, the most important functions of the accreditation process include assessing the quality degree of academic programs offered by educational institutions, creating a culture of continuous improvement, stimulating elevation of standards among institutions and positively involving individual institutions.

Concerning their staff, in the evaluation and planning process, the main roles revolve around establishing criteria for professional certification & licensing, and upgrading the educational program offering.

The most common steps for obtaining accreditation for a program include the following:

Standard establishment –conducted by the accreditation authority in collaboration with the program developers;
In-depth program self-evaluation against the performance criteria stated by the standard;
On-site evaluation against the standard requirements, conducted by the accreditation authority;
Decision, publication and monitoring – In case of a positive decision, the program is listed in an official publication and constantly monitored by the accreditation authority to ensure standard compliance;
Reevaluation – After the accreditation period expires, the accreditation authority perform a reevaluation.

Image source: