International recognition options

Ross Woods, (Apr. 06; minor revisions Dec. 08)

 

This line of thought arose after some discussions with a reputable institution of higher education that offers unaccredited degrees. For the purposes of this paper, let’s call it XYZ. XYZ was between a rock and a hard place for formal recognition. Besides, its two related but separate problems were recognition and legality, although recognition itself would not solve its legal problems.

First, we'll look at it institutional strengths and weaknesses. Then well look at a range of ways that XYZ could gain recognition. Last, we'll look at several ways that would work best for this institution to solve its problem.

 

Strengths & weaknesses

As its strengths, it would list:

• It was over a century old.
• Its legal basis was sound for continuing to operate and issue degrees in two of the three countries in which it operated.
• It maintained links with a government university and at least one major accredited college. Moreover, the Principal in one country was on the academic staff of a major government university.
• Its qualification structure and degree requirements had evolved over time, but were generally sound.

It also has weaknesses. Recognition was made more difficult by other factors:

• It operated in several countries, so it faced different legislation requirements. By following older European traditions, its degree requirements were sometimes inconsistent with local expectations in some locations.
• XYZ was generally suspicious of accreditors. It was defensive of its independence, interpreting accreditation to be external control. Moreover, it disagreed with some policies of the main local accreditors in its country of incorporation. Considering the track record of its main local accreditor, these fears were at least in the past justified.
• Its biggest office was not in its country of origin.
• Feeling confident in the quality of its courses, it did not have continuous improvement programs or internal quality audits in place, although it did moderate research with major institutions.
• It had been negatively listed in a major international college guide, and authorities in one of the countries had investigated it, although the program had been permitted to continue.
• It had a policy of offering honorary and eundem gradum degrees to persons whom it considered worthy.
• It faced ethical limitations on using its institutional links to gain recognition. Its staff members were often on the staff of major universities but could not use university letterhead to recommend XYZ. Besides being a potential conflict of interest, it would probably need university authorization.
• The greatest problem is a trend in two countries to introduce legislation prohibiting the offering of degrees in their jurisdictions without permits. Permits were then only obtainable for accredited qualifications. In some cases, this was easy to circumvent by offering credits that could be transferred to XYZ, or preparing students for assessment for XYZ degrees. Although legal, it did involve some risk as it was effectively no different from offering XYZ degrees.

 

Recognition options

Moderate with another college

It could have a formal moderation system with a local university, and issue formal letters of co-assessment or moderation. This would require permission from the other institutions, but it results in legally recognisable documentation of quality. One wonders what advantage such a procedure would give to the university and why it would enter into such a relationship, unless it was fee for service or a service-for-service exchange.

The moderation system might also affect credibility. For example:

• Participation in a group moderation of examination script samples might be a sound and inexpensive assessment process and effectively defines quality in context. However, XYZ could easily ignore anything with which it disagreed, so the process would not guarantee that XYZ qualifications were up to the defined standard.
• A co-assessment system would be good, although expensive, and would determine issuance of qualifications. That is, two or more assessors from different institutions assess scripts of final examinations without knowing the identity of the students or their institutions. Most likely, assessors would also hold a group moderation as part of the process.
• However, in research- or portfolio-based qualifications, moderation would be as simple as having a letter on letterhead from a thesis reader stating equivalence, although this only applies for individual students rather than whole institutions.

As strengths, moderation recognises other institutions as peers and has the ability to effectively guarantee equivalence. It allows XYZ to choose a college that was similar to itself.

On the other hand, moderation assumes that students do exactly equivalent work (which is unlikely given that each institution seeks to be unique in some way) and that degrees had exactly the same meaning, which is seldom the case. Moreover, it could easily be seen to compromise the autonomy of XYZ.

Letters of Recommendation

Private accredited colleges (but not government universities) could issue a simple letter of recommendation for all XYZ qualifications. Students can then use the recommendations as attachments to their qualifications. Even so, such letters in themselves are not full recognition or accreditation. Besides, they pose a risk to the colleges that issue them—if legislators subsequently forced XYZ to close down in one of the countries, it would reflect badly on the colleges that issued recommendations.

Eundem gradum qualifications

One of its kindred organizations could issue eudnem gradum qualifications. That is, XYZ graduates apply to the other institution for another degree on the basis of their XYZ degrees.

On the good side, it is a good alternative where other colleges have procedures in place and where the qualifications are directly equivalent in content and nomenclature. Some accreditors have systems in place that actively encourage such practices though recognition of prior learning protocols.

The approach also has weaknesses. It might be interpreted to demean the XYZ degree. The XYZ degree would have no value of its own; only the eundem gradum qualification would be valuable. Most commonly an extra fee might be imposed. Besides, the other institution must have safeguards in place, which might be interpreted to be barriers to recognition.

Articulation pathway

It could have a formal articulation channel, that is, an agreement whereby another institution agrees to accept its graduates for admission into further degrees.

It is a win-win relationship. The other institution can recruit students and is probably a preferred destination. The arrangement also fully recognises the XYZ qualification, and has all the advantages of a eudnem gradum qualification without some of its potential weaknesses.

On the other hand, this arrangement still has potential weaknesses:

• It doesn’t apply to all students, only to those who continue studies.
• It doesn’t apply to those with terminal qualifications, such as terminal Master degrees and most doctorates.
• Almost certainly, the other institution must have some safeguards in place, and these might be interpreted to be barriers to recognition.

International recognition systems

One of the countries has a government protocol for recognising foreign qualifications whether or not they are accredited. It then issues a letter, and for all purposes thereafter in that country, the qualification is fully accredited. In effect, it is a variation of the eundem gradum alternative.

While it has no weaknesses, it has limitations. First, only one of the countries has such a process, and even there it applies only to foreign qualifications. Second, it is done on a student-by-student basis, not for whole institutions.

 

The best alternatives

Use a consortium

One excellent option is to come under a major institution as one of its member colleges. These kinds of consortia are more common in British-styled education systems that those of the US.

However, some of them seriously threaten the autonomy and identity of XYZ. Its board may justifiably feel that the benefits of recognition are outweighed by the losses. It would potentially:

• lose its autonomy,
• suffer diminished identity,
• experience disruption of academic systems and programs,
• incur financial costs, and
• surrender its right to issue its own qualifications.

But, given the right parent institution, it is an excellent option. In many cases, it could still have its own name on testamurs, maintain its own identity and program style, and gain recognition for the qualifications of past students. In fact, the right parent might mean that it would have nearly nothing to do with accreditation agencies.

Find a suitable accreditor

XYZ needs to select a reputable accreditor. The main catch is that no single accreditor could be equally well accepted in all countries in which XYZ operated.

With a plethora of recognised agencies, it is more likely that a suitable accreditor is available; better accreditors (although certainly not all) have now fixed many of the problems of which XYZ was afraid. They now allow considerable flexibility in delivery systems and, sometimes, qualification systems. For purpose of legal accreditation, this is clearly the best alternative.

One would hasten to add that the other recognition alternatives (intercollege moderation, letters of recommendation, eundem gradum qualifications, articulation pathways, and international recognition) all provide evidence that the program is of accreditable quality. Moreover, most are not mutually exclusive and all are excellent preparation for accreditation.