Entrevista com personalidades
Interview
Entrevista com personalidades
Interview
LEARN FROM THE TREND AND PRACTICE
IN LOCAL CONTEXT - AN INSPIRING INTERVIEW
WITH DR. JUDITH S. EATON
www.chea.org
Special Correspondent
Vanessa Amaro
The Council for Higher Education
Accreditation of the U.S. (CHEA)
is a non-governmental institutional
membership
organization
that
assesses the capacity of accrediting
bodies to assure and improve the
academic quality of institutions and
programs. In a visit to Macao, Dr. Judith
S. Eaton, President of CHEA, shared
with the Tertiary Education Services
Office (GAES) the core values of the
process involved in accreditation, and
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its rules in assuring quality for students
and the public.
Accreditation of higher education
institutions and its programs is all about
quality assurance and improvement.
With a history of more than a century
in the United States, there are today 60
recognized accrediting organizations,
all autonomous and nonprofit bodies,
which emerged from higher education
institutions and non-governmental.
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Entrevista com personalidades
Interview
Entrevista com personalidades
Institutions have primary responsibility
for academic quality, and accreditation
organizations are funded directly by
colleges and universities through the
payment of annual dues and fees
involved in on-site visits. “When I talk of
accreditation, I refer to quality, to getting
better. This is our approach,” says Dr.
Judith S. Eaton.
Accrediting organizations look at
institutions and programs, not to single
courses or individuals, and have worked
already with more than 7,800 U.S.
institutions. More than 22,650 programs
in American colleges and universities
were granted accreditation. It all starts
with standards that higher education
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must meet in order to be accredited.
Firstly, accrediting organizations define
a set of standards, and then institutions
move on to self-studies. Peer review is
the step that follows, which includes
site visits and team reports. With this
information on hand, accreditors make
a judgment through their decisionmaking commissions and award, or
not, accredited status. However, the
process doesn’t end here. Institutions
and programs undergo periodic review
aiming to maintain or improve quality.
Without being accredited, institutions
don’t fit the basic requirement for
being given federal funding. “Besides
assuring threshold quality for students
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and the public, accreditation is one
basis for private sector decisions to
support higher education through
tuition assistance, charitable giving, and
research funding. It also allows students
to transfer studies between institutions
without losing credits,” she explains.
In the U.S., government largely
relies on the work of accrediting
organizations, and based on their
judgment determines eligibility for
funds. However, federal or regional
authorities are neither empowered to
grant institutions accreditation, nor
interfere in the autonomy of those
accrediting organizations. “There’s the
U.S. Department of Education that
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scrutinizes the capacity of accrediting
organizations to assure the soundness
of institutions and programs that are
eligible for federal funds like student
aid”, she notes.
In this interview, Dr. Judith Eaton
expresses her thoughts on the
importance of quality and accreditations,
and considers that each country or
region should create its own system that
fits their own reality.
What
contribution
may
the
implementation of an accreditation
system bring to higher education in
Macao?
Quality is important, and higher
education has been very important
nowadays. It’s more important than
ever, because if we look around the
whole world is concerned about the
future of international competitiveness,
an economy built on knowledge and
services. There is an enormous concern
about international institutions working
together for student mobility access.
Higher education is important but at
the same time it’s expensive. So we
need to think about high quality. Higher
education is essential today, it’s no
longer optional as it was before. Fifty
years ago higher education was not
public. All the pressure on colleges
and universities for fine performance is
justified with the expectations students
and the public have today about higher
education.
To what extent may accreditation
lead to quality assurance?
In the U.S., when we talk about
accreditation we mean assuring quality
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and improving it. Assuring quality is
about being confident of certain areas
at a minimum level of performance,
and getting better through continuous
assessment. If we use accreditation,
it should lead to quality, and it’s the
only way now for higher education
institutions. However, it’s a system
that has been in place for a long time
already in many places, like the one I
come from, and in other locations this
is a concern that is now in the agenda.
The assumption of accreditation means
an external look at how colleges and
universities are operating.
Can we say the U.S. system fit
everywhere,
especially
in
the
context of Macao?
I think the notion that American
accreditation is the right one and that
everybody needs it the way it is, is
questionable. What we always try to do
with our organization is to say, ‘Look, this
is how we do it. Are you interested in it?
Check now what works for you. Just a
piece of it? Does it give you ideas about
how to do things?’. Education is very
much cultural bonded. It has a strong
social dimension, and the notion that
we can apply a single system is wrong.
It’s impossible to have a single approach
that fits every country or region. I don’t
agree with simply copying systems that
have been in place in other countries.
We have been working with accreditation
for quite a long time in the U.S., and I
think the benefit of it is to learn from
our experience and the mistakes. Every
country or region may design its own
system, making adjustments according
to each reality and context. It’s important
to respect the national base, because it’s
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how we do education in the world. It’s
country by country.
There are some concerns about
finding an international standard that
leads to quality and accreditation.
Is it possible to establish some
criteria for international standard of
excellency?
A lot of people are really interested in that.
People think a way is through ranking
systems, for example. But I’m not sure
exactly of what they measure. Rankings
are focused on a set of variables, and if
you change the variable you can create
infinite types of rankings. I think there
are a number of efforts in trying to define
criteria to define what should be standard
quality. But this is all relative, and, in my
opinion, doesn’t matter using ranking as
an indicator of quality, because quality is
more than variables. I don’t think this is
the right direction.
What are the main areas that CHEA
look at when assessing higher
education institutions?
Typically, in the United States, and
despite of having 60 different accreditors,
they all look at faculty, curricula, support
for students, academic counseling and
advising, technology, facilities. The
essential question is ‘what does make
up the academic experience?’ Besides
the richness of offerings to students,
accreditors pay attention to how faculty
is engaged, and how students achieve
the established high standards. The
accreditors also look at facilities, budget,
but to me it’s important to analyze the
academic environment and challenges
to improve quality.
In your opinion, what role must
the government assume in an
accreditation system?
It depends on the country, but an
accreditation system should have
certain principles. We know that higher
education prospers when we have
academic leadership; leadership from
faculties and academic administrators.
That’s different from government. We
know that higher education benefits
Interview
from peer review, from our willingness
in evaluating each other. We know
that students benefit when there’s
academic freedom, and a certain level
of self-determination and institutional
autonomy. Whatever the role of
government, I would argue those four
values are really very important. It’s
necessary to find a balance, and
question the robustness and efficiency
of a system that is totally dominated by
authorities outside higher education. I
prefer a collaborative system.
•
CHEA is an independent and
autonomous organization that aims
to strengthen academic quality.
What role does government play in
the process?
We were created by higher education
institutions, not by government and we
are funded and governed by institutions.
We have a board of 20 people, the
majority of which are presidents of
colleges and universities. We answer to
the higher education community, but at
the same time we work with government,
because CHEA and government do
similar things. For example, we both
review accredited bodies, and we are
both concerned about a tradition in the
United States that relies a lot on selfregulation and peer review.
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