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Quality in Higher Education

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Accreditation: The new quality

assurance formula? Some
reflections as Norway is about
to reform its quality assurance
system
Jon Haakstad
Published online: 18 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Jon Haakstad (2001) Accreditation: The new quality assurance formula?
Some reflections as Norway is about to reform its quality assurance system, Quality in
Higher Education, 7:1, 77-82, DOI: 10.1080/13538320120045102

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 Quality in Higher Education, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2001

Accreditation: the new quality

assurance formula? Some re¯ ections
as Norway is about to reform its
quality assurance system
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JON HAAKSTAD
Network Norway Council, Postboks 8150 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway

ABSTRACT After a decade when issues of quality and quality assurance have been highlighte d in
the European debate on higher education, this debate now seems to be moving into a new phase, with
increased focus on accreditation. There are several reasons for this shift from quality enhancement
to quality control, but the most important of these may be harmonisation ambitions in Europe
and in the general wish to increase international student mobility. This article looks at accreditation
as a concept and then narrows the perspective to `of® cial’ accreditation. A recent government-
commissioned report on higher education reform in Norway is given as example of the new trend.
The usefulness of all-inclusive, cyclical accreditation regimes at programme level is discussed: in
particular, what such a practice may do to the established tradition of constructive and development-
oriented evaluations, based on a quality concept that is dynamic and relative rather than ® xed and
static. The conclusion is an argument in favour of accreditation, if one must have it, at the
institutional level, based on a ¯ exible but reinforced audit method.

Accreditation: what is it?

The term `accreditation’ is not a very precise one. In one sense, it expresses the abstract
notion of a formal authorising power, acting through of® cial decisions on the recognition
(or not) of study programmes or institutions. In another sense, the term refers to the
quality label that institutions or programmes may acquire through certain accreditation
procedures. In both cases, accreditation aims at a `yes/no’ verdict: either a programme or
an institution is accredited or it isn’t. Consequently, accreditation always makes use of a
benchmarking method and must always refer to standards, whether these are explicitly
de® ned or not.
It is easier, perhaps, to approach the term by referring to `who does it’ than to answer
the question `what is it?’. Existing accreditation arrangements may be classi® ed in four
broad categories, according to who the agents are and what aims, function or limitations
their operations have (Erichsen, 1999; Sursock, 2000).
· National authorities of quality assurance, usually the Ministry itself or an authority that is
set up speci® cally to exercise this power, make formal judgements on the recognition of
programmes or institutions, basing their rulings on standards for awards and diplomas.
In most European countries, it is the national state that `owns’ academic degrees and
authorises institutions to award these [1]. This is different from, for example, the USA,

ISSN 1353± 8322 print; 1470± 1081 online/01/010077± 06 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1353832012004510 2
 78 J. Haakstad

where accrediting bodies set up by the institutions or by professional organisations

perform the only authoritative accreditations.
· Professional associations, or associations of institutions, may exercise national quality assur-
ance functions, sometimes even including accreditation powers. However, in recognition
of any government’s responsibility for regulating and controlling its national education
system, such self-controlling powers must be regarded as delegated `in trust’. In Europe,
the general trend has been a shift from early systems of quality assurance with roots in
the institutions themselves to systems operated by national agencies set up through
legislation.
· Individual institutions exercise accreditation powers through a right to recognise edu-
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cation from other institutions as integrated in their own awards and diplomas and a
right to offer programmes and courses without any speci® c process of recognition. With
certain restrictions, for example, Norwegian universities and state colleges can freely
open new programmes of up to 90 credits (1.5 years) inside subject areas that are already
well established at the institution. In other countries, this institutional freedom is even
greater. Formally, though, even such `self-accrediting’ powers are delegated, usually
following the institution’s status as `accredited’.
· Private organisations with academic legitimacy (for example, EQUIS) accredit institutions,
faculties and programmes according to certain threshold levels, which they themselves
de® ne. Such `certifying’ or `classi® cation’ procedures may help de® ne cross-national
standards, but they are essentially private and voluntary. Hence, such accreditation may
enhance an institution’s reputation, but it does not alter its formal status inside a nation’s
higher education system.
Leaving accreditation by private and institutions’ associations to one side (as unof® cial and
delegated, respectively), it remains to clarify what of® cial accreditation is and does. First,
a word on what it doesn’t do. It does not normally prohibit the delivery of unaccredited
courses or the establishment of unaccredited institutions. Nor does it prohibit the use of the
terms `higher education’ about such courses or even `university’ about such institutions, as
these terms are not legally protected in most countries. What of® cial accreditation does is
to bring publicly recognised programmes and institutions under the umbrella of a national
system of protected awards and diplomas, which (some of them) in turn give access to
certain regulated professions and titles. A distinction must also be made between academic
accreditation (which is the subject of this paper) and the professional accreditation, or
authorisation, that professional bodies or authorities outside higher education perform, for
instance, in the licensing of doctors or psychologists.
Accreditation does not automatically secure public funding. Whereas decisions on
accreditation are based on quality standards and are supposed to be objective, the funding
authority is a strictly political one and rests with the government, on whose discretion
accredited courses may be funded or not. However, it is the ® rm practice in most countries
that only of® cially accredited courses will receive public money. Typically, this is the most
important practical implication of accreditation.

A European Dimension in Quality Assurance?

Just like growth, proliferation and deregulation create a need for new and independent
recognition procedures nationally, the globalisation of higher education (and particularly
the European convergence process) does the same in the international arena. The Bologna
Declaration singles out the generalisation of ECTS, compatible credit systems and `a
European dimension in quality assurance’, as speci® c objectives.
 Accreditation 79

However, there is an unease about the future role of accreditation procedures in an

international context. Will institutional deregulation ® nd its parallel in an open quality
assurance `market’, where national, transnational and organisation-based agents all take
part as `certi® ers’? Or will the opposite development prevail: a strong convergence pull
towards an all-European approach to accreditation under detailed guidelines? Or do the
various nations’ traditions and higher education systems differ to such an extent that the
new challenges must be met through transfer formulas between separate, national sys-
tems? The latter alternative, of course, expresses the present situation, rooted in the 1999
Bologna Declaration and the 1998 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education [2].
Notice, however, that the World Conference also recommended the development of
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comparable and internationally recognised quality standards, which, taken literally, might
push the convergence process a good deal further.
The critical question is what an increased emphasis on accreditation will mean in
practical terms and particularly how it will affect evaluation strategies. Will there be a
sharp and smart touch to recognition procedures, or will accreditation systems be in¯ ated
so as to invade and dominate the domain of evaluations and cause these to refer more to
® xed standards? The combined system of subject review and quality audit in Great Britain
is a case in point. So are the new proposals in Norway and the recent development in
Sweden, where a programme of comprehensive, cyclical subject reviews is now being
introduced, with accreditation control as one of its explicit aims. Will more comprehensive
systems of accreditation control really assure and enhance educational quality and, if so,
at what cost?
Before drastic reorientations are made on national levels, it may be wise to observe that
although the `quality movement’ is truly an international and European phenomenon,
there is nothing in the policy signals on the European scene to indicate either a free
`accreditation market’ or a pressure to conform to any `Euro-standard’. For all its emphasis
on the need to create a `European space of higher education’, the Bologna Declaration
makes it clear that the individual nations’ approach to quality assurance must be respected
and that any European dimension in accreditation arrangements must rest on national
systems. Although there has been a string of opinion in favour of more binding arrange-
ments inside the European Union, there are no of® cial hints at an all-European accredita-
tion reÂgime. The most likely `binding’ arrangement may be the establishment of a quality
assurance agency at this level to conduct meta-evaluations of the national agencies and
their practice. For example, in Europe, the recently established European Network of
Quality Assurance Agencies could be the embryo of a `meta-agency’. The intriguing
question is whether such a development, and the general convergence process, will
eventually create a pressure on individual countries to adopt similar procedures.

Accreditation in Practice
The accrediting function can be subdivided into initial accreditation and accreditation
control. It may also be useful to distinguish between institutional accreditation and the
accreditation of single programmes and courses.

Initial Accreditation
There must be some kind of authorisation control when new study programmes are
launched. All countries have procedures to that effect and public money will normally not
¯ ow to new courses or programmes unless they are of® cially recognised. But the proce-
 80 J. Haakstad

dures may be fairly simple and based on trust. Either the institution itself, by virtue of
being an accredited or recognised one, is empowered to launch a course without any
recognition process at all, or the matter is decided administratively on the basis of advice
from a small expert panel. Initial accreditation procedures are usually nothing like
full-scale evaluations and they say nothing about actual quality; rather, they make predic-
tions about quality based on an assessment of preconditions.
Instances of initial institutional accreditation are not very common, at least not in
countries with a well-de® ned structure of institutions, where the institutions’ right to offer
recognised higher education is based on either a longstanding tradition or on state
ownership and steering. Nor would there be a great need for such procedures in the future
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if robust accreditation is taking place at single-course level.

On the other hand, institutional proliferation in the private sector may widen the arena
for institutional accreditation and so may the trend towards deregulation [3]. In most
countries institutions are registered in different categories, with different powers to confer
degrees. In Norway, for instance, the law recognises four types of institutions: private
colleges, state colleges, special subject universities and (full-scale) universities. The possi-
bility of transfer from one category to another, most typically answering the drift from
`college’ to `university’, has been indicated (Mjù s, 2000) and would require a kind of
accreditation process on the institutional level. For example, in 1998 three Swedish
Regional Colleges were of® cially recognised as universities after a thorough evaluation.

Accreditation Control
The present debate is not about initial accreditation. It is mainly concerned with the need
for systematic follow-up procedures in a climate where informal and self-regulatory
quality assurance has become harder to trust: when authority is transferred from state to
institution and institutions must `sell’ their services in a competitive market, educational
`outcomes’ are focused. Product control is the name of the game.
What, then, should accreditation control do? It should make sure, or give a reasonable
guarantee, that the educational services that people pay for through taxes, and choose in
preparation of future careers, hold acceptable standards. Accreditation is a `yes/no’ affair,
therefore, what it shouldn’t do is try to assign marks or ranking orders to institutions or
programmes. Accreditation concerns itself with minimum (if still high) standards and
similar other forms of product control; it passes no value judgement beyond the `yes’ or
`no’, with an added explanation of shortcomings in the case of a `no’ verdict.
The crucial question is how it should be done. Of course, evaluations are the traditional
tool of looking into the quality of educational services and can easily take care of the
accrediting function. But evaluations have a much broader set of purposes, developed in
a climate when informal controls were more trusted. Evaluations in the higher education
sector are typically concerned with institutional learning and quality development. Em-
ploying SWOT analyses, they aim at making the institution get a better judgement of itself
and its activities and showing ways towards further improvement. There is an increasing
tendency to follow up accreditations through a reÂgime of cyclical subject evaluations. It
becomes crucially important to discuss how this control function will affect evaluation
practice.

Norway’s Choice of a Quality Assurance Strategy

The options that Norway is now facing illustrate dilemmas that are equally relevant in
many other European countries. If the Mjù s Commission has its way, Norway will be
 Accreditation 81

moving from a Ministry-regulated system of `recognitions’ to one where an independent

agency is given all accrediting powers; from a situation where no systematic approach to
accreditation control has been practised to one where this is seen as a necessity; and
possibly, from a system where formal concerns over accreditation will outweigh the
developmental objectives of established evaluation procedures. But the Commission is
vague and ambiguous on how their proposals should be implemented. While a chapter on
`quality and ef® ciency in higher education’ argues wholeheartedly that evaluations should
have an open and development-oriented approach, the chapter on the proposed `evaluat-
ing and accrediting agency’ describes how evaluations must carry a system of accreditation
controls on its back. To add to the confusion, the Commission’s ® nal statement about
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accreditation is a warning against `a major evaluation/accreditation bureaucracy’ and the

costs of a cyclical accreditation routine.
The latter concern echoes well-known criticisms of over-burdened evaluation proce-
dures. For instance, critics of the present British system of quality assurance have observed
that such an impressive and seemingly watertight package of cyclical subject reviews and
institutional audits is quite a heavy price to pay (for the government and for the
institutions) for the tracing of a tiny number of substandard programmes, whose shortcom-
ings might possibly be found out through simpler control procedures (Underwood, 1998).
Arguably, these evaluations also have other useful purposes, as all evaluations do, but then
again, how well suited can evaluations be for developmental purposes when accreditation
according to standards is so high on the agenda? When answering that question well-
known facts about fear, resistance, defensive strategies and instrumental behaviour in
connection with controlling or measuring procedures should be taken into account. This
raises the question whether accreditation control can be exercised in a different format,
leaving subject and programme evaluations with their traditionally constructive and
forward-looking approach.

Accreditation Control through Institutional Audit?

The question of accreditation control may no longer be an `if’ but a `how’, in which case
it clearly has no legitimacy to rely on random testing or the haphazard discovery of quality
failure through scattered evaluations. To say that accreditation control is being properly
dealt with, scrutiny must be systematic and comprehensive.
One way of combining greater simplicity with ef® ciency might be to direct external
accreditation control at the institutional level, taking as it were autonomous institutions
seriously for what they are. Such a scrutiny, like other systems of quality audit, should
focus on the design and functioning of the institution’s internal quality assurance appar-
atus and the documentation that this system provides. External audits, carried out every
3 or 4 years, would test what the institution does, review and challenge its own summed-
up appreciation of the internal quality situation (its self-examination), and evaluate the
measures that are taken to overcome weaknesses and improve quality generally. Eventu-
ally, the audit would also assess the results of speci® c efforts that come out of earlier audit
rounds.
Experience with audit evaluation (Askling, 1998) shows that this approach generally has
a positive effect on the development of quality awareness and quality work in the
institutions. Presumably, it also helps educational quality. But an `indirect’ method like
this, that is, one that does not enter educational quality at the level of speci® c subject areas
or programmes, will need certain fortifying characteristics in order to be a robust tool for
quality assurance purposes. The whole point about not having to perform accreditation
 82 J. Haakstad

control via a comprehensive system of subject evaluations rests on the assumption that
information needed for the assessment can be produced by the institution’s own quality
system, and in a format that makes external auditing realistic. This, ® rst of all, presupposes
that the internal system is geared to generate documentation on quality-related data
according to some broad and shared guidelines. A minimum requirement is that these
guidelines identify some key areas for internal assessment and that the method of
documentation enables external examiners to follow paths through aggregated information
at relevant levels (institution, faculty, subject) down to the individual courses. Ideally, the
documentation of internal assessments and other quality work should be supported by
systematically registered key statistics on intake quality, resource input and outcomes at
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single-course level.
Such quality audit would be systematic as well as economical. It would meet the
institution at the point where the responsibility for educational quality lies, its leadership,
and it ought to inspire institutions in their effort to develop a proper quality system. At the
same time it is open-ended and development-oriented in the sense that no particular way
of organising or practising quality assurance internally is prescribed. Thus, it may also
embrace the variations in mission and orientation that will exist, and frequently are
encouraged, among institutions. It might also be just robust enough to underpin sound
external judgements and to detect the programmes or subject areas that need to be probed
more deeply into. In short, it might be an interesting alternative to traditional subject
reviews as a tool for accreditation control.
Increased efforts to safeguard the quality of higher education and to facilitate the
international transportability of degrees and quali® cations should not force individual
countries to adopt a heavy-handed approach to accreditation control at single-subject level.
The dangers of ritualism and evaluation fatigue, the likelihood of instrumental behaviour
on the part of evaluated institutions, and the limits on resources that can be assigned to
quality assurance, all speak in favour of a different approach. So do the dangers of letting
proper evaluations become too much concerned with ® xed standards and yes/no verdicts,
when instead they should address developmental challenges and motivate efforts at
self-improvement and institutional learning.

Notes
[1] Historically, of course, the question of ownership to academic awards is somewhat more complicated,
with a strong tradition for institutional ownership.
[2] The Declaration, Article 11. The Article states that quality is a multidimensional concept and must
include speci® c institutional, national and regional conditions.
[3] Editor’s note: initial institutional accreditatio n indeed tends to occur in countries with a rapidly
expanding private provision, such as Chile.

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(Oslo, Norwegian Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs).
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