GLOBALISING WITH ACCREDITATION Accreditation is peer endorsement of quality and the process compares the levels of quality the institution has achieved with the best in the class; and since “best” is a relative term, the bar on quality keeps continuously going up. This is the biggest promise of accreditation standard and the only reason why it becomes relevant in any field where quality is the differentiator and certainly this is true of higher education. Accreditation benchmarks, if international, provide greater guarantee and reassurance of the levels of quality achieved, particularly at a time when countries like India are fully global in character and industry, and completely focused on catering to the global market place. What are the challenging areas for globalisation for the school? The quality of the students who join the school is a function of the local demographics and the quality of the institutions where they did their previous degrees in. However, global benchmarks of student admission process and the filters being applied would greatly help in getting the best quality of talent pool with which a great business school could be built. Be it admission, pedagogy, the faculty facilitation process, the infrastructure elements, the book keeping process, the networking process, the brand building issues, the people development issue, the compliance parameters, the continuous and quality improvement process… and all the rest of the B-school processes, there is room for constant improvement which an accreditation system easily provide. Besides, an accreditation agency also acts as an informal anchor and clearing house for cross institutional exchange of information and resources for overall development of the business schools. If it is an international accreditation agency, the chances of learning from the peer teams across the systems and cultures definitely improve. There are other more direct contingent benefits like faculty exchanges, student exchanges, academic collaborations and even joint venture campuses that will come out of being globally networked business school. At SEAA we put together the accredited schools list of the five accrediting agencies AACSB International, Association of MBAs, EQUIS EFMD, IACBE and ACBSP and we came up with an interesting figure of around 2,800 schools from our list across the system, answering all manners of schools in terms of size in terms of student admission, vintage, geographic location, nature of ownership, languages with which business education is taught etc. This number is only the beginning and we expect the total size of the internationally accredited schools to touch at least 50 in India by 2015, a hundred within the following year, and by 2020 we would have at least 400 schools globally accredited in the country. The Road Map The first issue relates to understanding of the accreditation process and its benefits, which is why the series of events like the current “Regional Accreditation Conference 2010-Bengaluru” is being held around the country by India’s first international accreditation advocacy agency, SEAA Trust. Chart: SEAA Accreditation Advocacy
Once there is proper understanding, the pros and cons relating to accreditation the schools have to do a thorough introspection and revisit all their processes, management practices, people practices, student admission processes, student and faculty engagement processes, outreach programmes and networking, etc. With the understanding of the benefits and other aspects of the international accreditation process, and also armed with the knowledge of the various accreditation agencies, make an informed choice about the agency you would go with. Accreditation is a painfully slow process but something that would instantly build the institution, and as such the benefits will start occurring right from the word go. For more details and information related to the international accreditation process, please visit our website www.seaastandards.org and also become a member of the SEAA Accreditation Forum, which is being built as a platform for sharing views and strategies for acquiring accreditation and using it for the growth of the institution and also the industry. SEAA Trust, 36-C Pocket I MIG Flats Mayur Vihar III Delhi 110096 ph: 011-22620539, 9811297249, 9313207251, 9810430435. E-mail: seaastandards@gmail.com |
