International accreditation: Are we there yet?

Abstract

With the increasing internationalization of higher education and the explosion in the number of students and faculty studying, researching, and teaching outside of their home countries, global standards for educational quality control have become an imperative. The most effective approach to quality control within institutions of higher education, the paper argues, is voluntary accreditation-periodic internal reviews that are externally validated. Accreditation is a uniquely American creation, but it is gaining currency in other countries as well. The paper discusses the potential benefits of international accreditation, which would facilitate collaboration between accredited universities located in different countries. The practice of accreditation is contrasted with the practice of ranking, which is presented as a commercial exercise that does a poor job of measuring the actual institutional quality and that is ultimately based on the personal opinions of the people doing the ranking. Finally, the potential challenges that international accreditation faces (including unwillingness of the creators of the current quality industry to yield power to a global accreditation agency, among other things) are presented as temporary obstacles.