Accreditation Process Essay Example for Free

Accreditation Process EssayAccreditation refers to the recognition given to institutions which thrust fully met specific standards of educational quality by an agency or an association. In the US, the relevant agencies undertake a review of education quality at all levels including elementary, secondary, colleges and universities. The agencies squ are up basic standards reflecting the qualities of sound educational programs (Hasley et al, 1986 pp 66).They then develop procedures aimed at determining whether the institutions and programs meet the set standards. Mevery other countries lack accreditation systems like those used in the US and instead bank mainly on government agencies to check their education quality and standards. In Canada, provincial government authorities work closely with private educational associations in periodically assessing the quality of universities, colleges and give instructions.Accreditation offers standards of excellence that help in encouraging educational institutions in improving their programs. It besides provides accountability for institutions educational policy, and creates criteria for certifying professions like medicine and law. Furthermore, it helps potential students to identify quality institutions, while facilitating student transfer from an institution to another. Accreditation is also among the factors used in determining the institutions and programs eligible for receiving federal and private funds.The accreditation procedure for any agency entails five fundamental stages, each of which has many other subtasks under it. First, the agency must establish the criteria or standards of academic excellence in denotation with the educational institution being accredited.The second stage involves development of procedures enabling institutions to evaluate themselves deeply, to help in determining if they meet the set accreditation standards or not. In case they do not meet the established standards, the institu tions must go back to the drawing board and make the necessary ad moreoverments and improvements to satisfy the required demands. Depending on the level of compliance, this may require the institution to invest some more time and resources and resources into it.Thirdly, the agency performs an evaluation aimed at determining first-hand if the institution really meets the set standards. This involves examining the institutions facilities as well as its resources, both physical and human. This is through with(p) until the agency is fully convinced that the institution meets its minimum requirements. The evaluation is done by the agencies experts, who are usually leged with specific requirements for accreditation.Fourthly, the agency then grants the accreditation to the institution after it is convinced that the necessary requirements have been met. It then publishes a tendency of institutions that have met similar requirements and have been awarded accreditation by the agency, inclu ding the time of the accreditation.Finally, the agency periodically reviews these institutions to find out if they still maintain educational quality standards. This is done to realise the institutions do not compromise on the quality of educational standards. All accreditation agencies utilize these steps even though inspection procedures and specific criteria differ depending on the agency.Current issues in the accreditation processProblems of the Law School Accreditation ProcessFor the past ten or so years, the American Bar Associations accrediting arm has faced a lot of criticism with regard to its standards. The association has been incriminate of having poorly monitored standards that are not related to law schoolhouse quality (Marty et al, 1991).Critics are of the view that ABAs accreditation standards lack correlation with professional competence and institutional quality. The accreditation process puts emphasis on high cost inputs like requirements for physical facilitie s, subroutine library collections and the number of professors available. Moreover, it considers test scores at law school admission, which has been criticized as not being related to professional skills and academic achievement. The association has also been accused of restricting low income students and minorities by putting too much emphasis on standardized tests as well as raising tuition fees (Luebchow, 2007).The critics have accused the ABA of being inconsistent and using secret rules, which are not made public or disclosed to schools, to make accreditation decisions. The incision of Education has also complained about ABAs failure in abiding by the departments specific requirements (Hagan, 2004 pp201). The Congress has also raised concerns about the associations accreditation.Both the federal officials and law schools have often disapproved ABAs accreditation process from the early 1990s. The Massachusetts School of Law, which has itself not been accredited, has for long st rongly criticized the association. In 1993 the school sued ABA citing violation of antitrust law because it functioned as a cartel and set unfair standards that only raised costs, yet were not connected to law school quality. The Justice Department filed a similar suit in 1994, leading to a ten year consent decree, which is now defunct (Hagan, 2004).The Education Department has also crossed heads with the association over its failure to comply with the departments criteria for recognition since the 1990s. These deficiencies led to the limiting of the associations recognition to just three years in 1997. Later in 1998, the Education Departments staff recommended the limiting, suspending or terminating the associations recognition as nationwide recognized accreditation agency (Luebchow, 2007).