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 24 N ú m e r o O i t o M a r ç o E i g h t h I s s u e M a r c h 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. 25 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 26 N ú m e r o O i t o M a r ç o E i g h t h I s s u e 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 M a r c h Interview 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 27 Entrevista com personalidades 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 28 Interview Entrevista com personalidades 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 N ú m e r o O i t o 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. M a r ç o E i g h t h I s s u e M a r c h 29