Organizational Approaches and Processes of Accreditation

Dr. Manuel T. Corpus Executive Director Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges And Universities in the Philippines (AACCUP)

1. INTRODUCTION

The accrediting organization for state universities and colleges was born in 1987 with the original name, State Colleges and Universities Accrediting Agency in the Philippines (SCUAAP). However, when it was submitted for registration in the Securities and Exchange Commission, it was required that the word "state" be dropped as the Agency is a private agency. It was finally registered on September 4, 1989 with the name of the organization being changed to Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines (AACCUP), Inc.

Thus, AACCUP joined the three other accrediting agencies, the oldest of which existed as early as 1957 while the two others started in the mid-1970's.

In search of a model, AACCUP sought the assistance of the older agencies and practically "copied" from them, the most important of which was accreditation by program. Though accreditation in state colleges and universities was supposed to start in 1987, the initial years were devoted to the organization of the agency, the development of manual of procedures, the preparation of accreditation instruments, the recruitment and training of accreditors, and the task of selling the ideology of accreditation to the clientele (SUCs) which were not pre-disposed to plunging on a new endeavor.

It was only on September 15-17, 1992 when the first preliminary survey visit was conducted under AACCUP. What started quite slowly, and even reluctantly, has gained momentum after mid-1990s to the extent that as of the end of the year 2000, there were 65 (among the 108) SUCs that have accredited programs.

Ten years of experience, albeit fruitful, in accreditation has led to the emergency of certain concerns or issues on accreditation by program particularly its relevance, usefulness and the operational practicality of the model culminating in the decision of the AACCUP Board on March 1, 2001 to explore other models of accreditation, and commissioning this writer to lead this project.

2. THE UNIT OF ASSESSMENT

Different countries the world over adopt varying structures, functions, mechanisms, and practices in their accreditation (or quality assurance) programs. But one of the most serious issues that are currently subjected to review is the unit of assessment.

What is the unit of assessment used globally? Almost all countries have certain mechanisms in place that assess the institution as a whole, the individual academic programs, or a few others using a mixture of both. A few examples may be recalled: in India, they assess institutions in the Philippines, programs; and in Hongkong, they begin with institutional review, and later validate the individual programs. The Presidential Commission on Educational Reform (PCER) recommended a modification of the model in the Philippines by recommending accreditation by discipline; the concept being used to mean, a cluster of programs, like, engineering and technology, sciences and others.

What unit of assessment should be adopted in the Philippines? Shall we stick to accreditation by program, or shall we explore other models as suggested by the CHED-organized Technical Working Group on Quality Assurance and by Dr. Marian Phelps, a consultant recently commissioned by the Asian Development Bank to study the quality assurance program in the Philippines?

I would like to offer three criteria in selecting the unit of assessment, namely: 1) the number and size of higher education institutions, 2) the purpose of accreditation, and 3) the feasibility of using the model.

Accrediting by program has strong points. As it is reviewing a small unit, it enjoys the advantage of being well-focused; it looks into details. However, it is too fragmented, and in a country with over a thousand higher education institutions, it would take many years, perhaps even a century to accredit all programs even in just one cycle. This may be one of the major explanations why in spite of a history spanning more than four decades of accreditation, we can claim a coverage of less than 20%. Obviously, accreditation by program is not the practical approach suited in the Philippines unless we are prepared to accept the continued weakening of our educational system.

Even with only 110 state universities and colleges, the toll caused by the increasing traffic for applications for accreditation is now being felt by the AACCUP. This alone justifies a need to seek for other accreditation models, one of which points to increasing the scope, shortening the cycle, and improving the quality of the process.

One practical advantage of accreditation by institution is that the academic quality is defined by its collective impact. Indeed, in accreditation surveys, it is operationally strenuous to segregate the evaluation of certain inputs to the academic program as these are not used exclusively by the program under survey, but are shared with other units or programs of the institution. Take the case of the library, the laboratories, the classrooms, and other physical facilities. Even the services, such as the student services, not to mention the administration of programs, are extended institution-wide.

Another advantage of using the institution as the unit of assessment is its usefulness and relevance to the major stakeholders, such as the government, which provide the funds (quite relevant to state-supported institutions), the students, employers, aid-granting institutions, donors, foundations, etc. In those cased, the commitment and the accountability are demanded from the recipient of the assistance, which is the institution and not from individual programs. When in legislative budget hearings, the legislators budget hearings, the legislators ask questions on accreditation, they would like to refer to the accreditation of the whole SUC. It is unfair to say: “we are accredited” when in fact, one is referring to only the accreditation of one or two of the over 20 programs offered by the institution.

3. TOWARDS A NEW FRAMEWORK OF ACCREDITATION

A shift from program to institutional accreditation calls for a new framework, such as: 1) a redefinition of the scope or focus, and precisely defining the picture of the accredited institutions; 2) benchmarking what will be measured; 3) a new system of measurement; 4) a new breed of accreditors; 5) a partnership (with the SUCs) approach in institutional and program accreditation; and 6) the leveling of accreditation awards.

3.1 Model: The Accredited SUC

Is the currently used one-size-fits-all approach still relevant in an institutional accreditation? (The relevance of this approach even in program accreditation was already under question)

How do we define the institution to be evaluation? One way of defining the parameters of the evaluation is to assess the institution on the basis of its mission, goals and objectives. Thus, in the scheme, an institution defines its mission and its performance is evaluated only as it is related to its mission. Thus, a primarily teaching institution is assessed differently from research institutions. A problem may crop up - how do we handle the programs pursued by an institution which are not within the ambit of its mission? How about SUCs with multi-campuses? Let us admit that one weakness in the choice of the institution as the unit is that in the assessment of the whole, it may not be able to distinguish between the good and the bad sub-units, or the good and the not-so-good curricular programs. Of course, certain pre-determined threshold qualifications or compliance levels for all campuses and programs as a sine qua non for the award of an accreditation status may be required. Given the mission, goals and objectives, an appropriate evaluation scheme may be adopted in defining the focus of assessment.

3.2 What will be measured?

One misconception must be settled right way. Accreditation by institution does not mean dropping programs in the evaluation. The programs will still be the major foci of evaluation.

The present accreditation by program under AACCUP adopts 10 criteria, namely: 1) mission, goals and objectives, 2) faculty, 3) curriculum and instruction, 4) students, 5) research, 6) extension and community involvement, 7) library, 8) physical facilities, 9) laboratories, and 10) administration.

The Technical Working Group commissioned by the CHED to devise a system for the ranking/classification of higher education institutions, public and private, recommended 12 evaluation criteria, via: 1) Administration, 2) faculty, 3) student services, 4) curriculum and instruction, 5) physical plant and facilities, 6) library and media resources, 7) laboratory resources, 8) research, 9) extension and community outreach programs, 19) performance indicators, 11) information, communication and technology, and 12) linkages and networking.

This design for the ranking/classification of HEIs is institution-based; it also includes a criterion on performance of outcomes.

A paradigm shift necessarily needs a dramatic change in the standards used. The criteria adopted by the Technical Working Group on the Ranking/Classification of HEIs illustrate attempts to align the accreditation system to global practices, particularly in the inclusion of performance and information, communication and technology in the evaluation by institution, even while it still puts primary emphasis on inputs.

A new accreditation paradigm needs to still include the inputs (e.g., facilities), and procedures (e.g., teaching-learning transactions and administration of services). However, there must be an emphasis on measuring the success of past activities (lagging indicators) through outcomes as well as the dynamism of the institution (leading indicators) as measures of future performance as may be illustrated by the institution's planning and information management systems, and how fast the institution makes adaptations to innovations and challenges (learning indicators).

3.3 The System of Measurement

The present system adopts a system of values in the assessment based on the set criteria. Weights are allocated to the different criteria, and evaluation is pursued both qualitatively and quantitatively. The specific tool for evaluation is the accreditation instrument.

The new measurement system will contain similar features, viz, adoption of scale of values, assignment of weights to the different criteria, a mix of quantitative and qualitative evaluation, and use of accreditation instruments. But, the measurement will depart from the almost exclusive reliance on inputs, to an assessment of outcomes, quality management practices, the dynamism of the institution, and its actual performance in adapting to new challenges. This will require the use of more open-ended questions particularly in evaluating quality management and services.

3.4 A New Breed of Accreditors

The new model conceives of drawing some accreditors from the private sector or end-users of the graduates of the state institutions to join the current cream of peer accreditors from the SUCs. This will be a new experience for the host institution, the current crop of accreditors and the AACCUP itself.

Another new feature will be the special qualification of the accreditors. Under program accreditation the accreditors must have the particular program (e.g., agricultural technology) to be accredited as his area of specialization based on his education and experience. In institutional assessment, accditors will be selected on the basis of their qualifications in being able to assess certain criteria (e.g., financial management, research, or library) of the institution as a whole rather than of a particular program.

Aside from the accreditor's qualifications to evaluate a certain criterion (or "area" as we refer to in the accreditation instrument now being used), the model accreditor would still be sought knowledgeable and competent, able to make rigorous and objective assessment, able to relate professionally with the host institution officials, faculty and staff and to be a worthy team player, personal decorum (e.g., dressing) with no undesirable or improper habits, observing ethical standards, and other related traits.

The shift in the unit of assessment and the corresponding changes that it entails, necessitates a new program for training accreditors. This calls for the assistance of experience experts including foreign consultants to enrich this new scheme of accreditation with global experience.

3.5 A Partnership Approach

The goal of accreditation is to develop and sustain the quality of the educational services offered by an institution. Thus, it would enhance the success of the program if the institution develops an internally-driven initiative, and/or be a partner in the pursuit of the accreditation program. The new scheme proposed here is to adopt a partnership between the host institution and the external accreditors. Under this system, the accreditation of an institution, including the assessment and the award of accreditation will be the exclusive role of the AACCUP.

Along-side external assessment, the individual SUCs will be encouraged and assisted in developing their respective internal assessment systems manned by their accreditors, all or some of whom are AACCUP accreditors. The internal assessment system (body) will be tasked to:

1.	conduct self-surveys using the AACCUP instrument which may be validated by external accreditors;
2.	conduct internal assessment by discipline, or even by program, for the use of the individual institutions, and hold follow-up activities after an institutional accreditation is conducted; and
3.	plan, provide technical advice, and monitor implementation of survey team recommendations made by external accreditors.

3.6 The Levels of Accreditation

In AACCUP, as in the other accrediting agencies, we have adopted four (4) levels of accreditation (incidentally, PASUC has adopted a similar classification scheme for SUCs although using different criteria and designed for a different purpose).

Most European countries adopt only two (2) classifications of institutions: accredited or not accredited. The disadvantage of this scheme is that it removes the incentive of the accredited institutions to aspire for a higher status to be different from the rest.

India taking notice of this observation in the European countries, has modified the classification scheme. She will makes a distinction between the accredited or not accredited, but for the former, is a leveling from 1-star ascending to 5-star institutions. Under this new scheme where we intend to use the whole institution as the unit of assessment, there is an advantage of using a 4-level accreditation status to classify accredited programs, provided that we do away with the confusing label of level as only granting candidate status, not yet accredited. It would be advisable to use level I as the initial accreditation, and then improve upwards to level IV.

It is conceived that the grant of accreditation, valid only for a certain period (say five years for re-accredited status) may still be retained. However, the practice of requiring that accreditation status must pass through pre-determined stages must be re-examined. For example, why should an institution be required to qualify first for level II if it is already qualified for level III?

4. CONCLUSION

As mentioned earlier, this writer has been commissioned to prepare the new accreditation design. This paper is an initial approximation of a framework of a new accreditation model which will depart from program and shift to the institution, as the unit of assessment. In preparing this paper, this writer has profited from country papers on accreditation or quality assurance, the ideas of a few foreign experts that this writer has met at the INQAAHE (International Network on Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education) and other foreign conference, from stakeholders like officials from CHED and SUCs, private sector education experts and the officials of AACCUP. Certainly, comments and recommendations from the group of senior accreditors would be most welcome.

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