3.6 QUALITY ASSURANCE EXPERIENCE IN SELECTED COUNTRIES
3.6.1 Approaches to quality assurance in the USA
Accreditation is the quality assurance approach applied in USA HLIs and programmes to assure the quality of education. Accreditation in the USA has been undertaken for the past century, emerging from concerns to serve the public interest and safety. In this country, voluntary accreditation has been a major feature of the higher education setting (Hegji, 2017). Accreditation is a process of external quality review established and applied by accrediting bodies to assess the quality assurance system and mechanisms of universities, colleges and programmes (Eaton, 2015). A programme or an institution is granted accreditation if it meets minimum standards of quality set by the accrediting body (Hegji, 2017).
The higher education sector in the USA is made up of degree-granting and non- degree-granting institutions. These may be private or public, two- or four-year, for- profit or non-profit institutions. According to Eaton (2015) and CHEA (2020), accreditation in the USA is the main way in which government officials, families, students and the press establish whether an HLI or programme offers quality education. Colleges, universities and programmes are accredited by one of the accrediting organisations recognised by either or both the United States Department of Education (USDE) which is a government body, and CHEA, which is a private body (Hegji, 2017). Accordingly, as of August 2020, there were 19 recognised accrediting organisations for institution- and programme-level accreditation, and 79 recognised
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programme-accrediting organisations. For example, some of the CHEA- and USDE- recognised accrediting organisations are shown in Table 3.2 below.
Table 3.2: CHEA- and USDE-recognised accrediting organisations ACCREDITOR
CHEA1 recognition
status
USDE2 recognition
status Regional accrediting organisations
Higher Learning Commission ✓ ✓
Middle States Commission on Higher Education ✓ ✓
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities ✓ ✓ Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission
on Colleges ✓ ✓
National faith-related accrediting organisations Association for Biblical Higher Education Commission on
Accreditation ✓ ✓
Association of Institutions of Jewish Studies – ✓
Commission on Accrediting of the Association of
Theological Schools ✓ ✓
National career-related accrediting organisations
Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools – ✓
Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges – ✓ Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training – ✓
Distance Education Accrediting Commission ✓ ✓
Programmatic accrediting organisations
Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental
Medicine – ✓
Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education – ✓
Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education ✓ ✓
American Podiatric Medical Association Council on
Podiatric Medical Education ✓ ✓
Aviation Accreditation Board International ✓ –
Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education ✓ – Commission on English Language Programme
Accreditation – ✓
(✓) indicates recognised and (–) not recognised CHEA: Council for Higher Education Accreditation USDE: United States Department of Education
Source: CHEA (2020)
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The quality of these recognised accrediting organisations has been reviewed by USDE or CHEA. In many other countries, accreditation activities are performed by government organisations, but in the USA the accreditors are private (non- governmental) non-profit organisations established for the specific purpose of reviewing programmes and HLIs (CHEA, 2020).
In the USA, there are four types of accreditors, namely regional accrediting organisations, national career-related accrediting organisations, national faith-related accrediting organisations and programmatic accrediting organisations. For accrediting organisations to be recognised by CHEA, they must meet CHEA eligibility standards.
Accreditation is considered by both federal and state governments as a reliable indicator of academic quality (Hegji, 2017; CHEA, 2020a). The federal government relies on accreditation to assure the quality of programmes and institutions to provide federal funds for institutions and for federal aid to students (Hegji, 2017). Most state governments will initially licence programmes and institutions without accreditation.
However, they will subsequently require accreditation to make state funds available to students and institutions, and for graduates to sit for state licensure examinations in various professions (Foster, 2012).
The legitimacy of accrediting organisations is derived from the colleges, universities and programmes that created accreditation, not the government. The accountability of accreditors is to the public, government and the institutions and programmes they accredit. USDE recognition is funded by the US Congress, while CHEA recognition is funded by institutional dues (Hegji, 2017). The accrediting organisations perform their accreditation activities using paid fulltime and part-time staff in collaboration with volunteers. In 2012‒2013, the number of paid fulltime and part-time workers was 832, and that of the volunteers was 19,674 (Eaton, 2015). Institutional and programme-level accreditation is carried out on cyclical bases that may range from every few years to as many as 10 years; it is an ongoing review process carried out periodically. This implies that getting initial accreditation is not the entry to indefinite accredited status (Ewell, 2015; Foster, 2012).
The recognition processes of CHEA and USDE are similar in that self-evaluation is based on standards and reports based on site visits, and granting of recognition status (Hegji, 2017). However, the goals of CHEA and USDE recognition processes are
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different. The goal of CHEA is to assure that accreditors contribute to improve and maintain academic quality, while the goal of USDE is to assure that accreditors contribute to maintain the soundness of programmes and institutions that receive federal funds (CHEA, 2020a).
Recognition of accreditors is conducted by the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity based on the standards and review processes they apply to institutions judged against a set of established federal government criteria.
The initial accreditation process for a new institution is particularly detailed and overly burdensome and can take between 5 and 10 years to complete. For most institutions, after initial accreditation, re-accreditation happens every 10 years with frequent mid- term check-ups on their operations to provide them with an opportunity to update their methods and goals (Brown, Kurzweil & Pritchett, 2017). Accreditation is a standards- based, evidence-based, trust-based, peer-based, judgement-based process. A programme or an institution seeking accreditation must go through the following steps:
assuring minimum threshold quality in higher education (quality assurance) and assuring that programmes and institutions have processes to try to do what they do in a better way (quality improvement) (Eaton, 2016; Hegji, 2017).