The Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU) was established 55 years ago by 11 Catholic schools in the Philippines. Today, PAASCU has 449 member schools, not all of which are Catholic or Philippine.
Among the strengths of PAASCU that its president, Joel Tabora, S.J., highlighted in his speech at its General Assembly last Nov. 23 is its international recognition.
Tabora said, “We have been hearing of the need for education in the Philippines to step up to the challenges of globalization. In the global arena, PAASCU is a founding member since 1991 of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies for Higher Education (INQAAHE). In the Asia-Pacific arena, PAASCU is a founding member since 2003 of the Asia Pacific Quality Network (APQN). In the international medical accreditation arena, PAASCU has been recognized by the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA) of the United States Department of Education (USDE) as having standards comparable to those being used for accrediting medical schools in the US. PAASCU is also part of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) International Quality Group (CIQG). PAASCU alone is part of the ASEAN-QA Project. In the Philippines, PAASCU is the lead accreditation agency with international credibility.”
Instead of me explaining what each of these organizations do, just Google them. You will find out that these are the top accreditation organizations in the world.
What does having a Philippine accrediting association being recognized internationally mean?
As an example, let us look at what the NCFMEA means for Philippine medical schools.
Only nine medical schools are accredited by PAASCU, namely, University of the Philippines College of Medicine (Level 4), University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center (Level 3), Cebu Institute of Medicine (Level 2) and on Level 1, Oceania University of Medicine (Samoa), University of Santo Tomas, Dr. Jose P. Rizal College of Medicine of Xavier University, DLS Health Sciences Institute, FEU Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation, and Saint Louis University.
If you Google NCFMEA, you will find out that, “in some US states, physicians educated at a foreign school can only apply for medical licensure if they graduated from an accredited medical school.”
Even if you are against brain drain, accreditation still guarantees that you get the best possible education from your school.
The reason accreditation guarantees this is the extremely stringent process that PAASCU uses. Schools not only have to show that they are excellent in all areas of education, but they have to show that they have maintained this excellence through the years. To get from first application to Level 4, for example, will take a school at least a dozen years and, in most instances, a lot more than that.
PAASCU, like other internationally-recognized accrediting associations, checks if a school is being true to its mission and vision. PAASCU looks at both what the school offers to its students (sometimes called “inputs”) and what its students actually manage to do or become after having gone through the school (sometimes called “outcomes”).
PAASCU accreditation, in effect, assures quality. In business terms, accreditation would be a “quality seal” or “quality certification.” As defined in wisegeek.com, “Quality assurance (QA) is a process-centered approach to ensuring that a company or organization is providing the best possible products or services. It is related to quality control, which focuses on the end result, such as testing a sample of items from a batch after production. Although these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, quality assurance focuses on enhancing and improving the process that is used to create the end result, rather than focusing on the result itself. Among the parts of the process that are considered in QA are planning, design, development, production and service.”
Accreditation is the term used when a school undergoes the kind of quality assurance that businesses go through. Although schools sometimes also apply for ISO, Malcolm Baldridge, PQA, IQuAME, or other similar credentials, voluntary accreditation has remained the main gauge of a Philippine school’s excellence in educating students.
A good example of how the best schools in the world voluntarily seek external assessment is Harvard University. Here is an excerpt from Harvard’s website: “Harvard is reviewed for reaccreditation generally every 10 years. The process includes the preparation of a self-study in which the University evaluates itself on a range of academic, financial, physical and other criteria; a visit by a committee of external faculty and senior administrators during which they discuss issues raised in the self-study and draft a report and recommendation to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC); and finally, a response from NEASC.”
One thing PAASCU and other Philippine accrediting associations can learn from Harvard is this: Harvard encourages its faculty and students to write directly to NEASC before an accreditation visit. If you are proud of what you are doing and you have nothing to be afraid of, you should be able to defend yourself no longer in Plaza Miranda, but on Facebook and Twitter.
In this age when social networking has made us all global, Philippine schools should benchmark against Harvard and other world-ranked universities. PAASCU is on the right track in internationalizing. Academic accreditation is an area where the Philippines is a global leader.