Accreditation Council Foundation

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The Accreditation Council Foundation (formerly: Foundation for the Accreditation of Study Programs in Germany ) is a public law foundation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia with its seat in Bonn . It has the legal mandate to organize the system of quality assurance in study and teaching through the accreditation of study programs. The foundation adopts rules for the accreditation of study programs and for system accreditation and carries out the approval of accreditation agencies.

The Foundation has the Accreditation Council as its decision- making body , whose decisions are carried out by the Executive Board. The Board of Trustees monitors the legality and profitability of the foundation's business.

Through the foundation, the federal states ensure that the equivalence of corresponding study and examination achievements as well as degrees and the possibility of changing universities are guaranteed (Art. 5, Paragraph 2 of the interstate study accreditation treaty ). The interstate student accreditation treaty entered into force on January 8, 2018.

Accreditation agencies

The accreditation system for universities is decentralized in Germany. A degree program is certified by so-called accreditation agencies. The accreditation agencies are accredited by the Foundation's Accreditation Council.

Currently (July 17, 2016) ten agencies are accredited by the Council:

  • ACQUIN - Accreditation, Certification and Quality Assurance Institute
  • AHPGS - accreditation agency for courses in curative education, nursing, health and social work
  • AKAST - Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Canonical Study Programs
  • AQ Austria - Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation Austria
  • AQAS - Agency for Quality Assurance through Accreditation of Study Programs
  • ASIIN - accreditation agency for engineering, computer science, natural sciences and mathematics courses
  • evalag - Evaluation Agency Baden-Württemberg
  • FIBAA - Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation
  • AAQ - Agency for Accreditation and Quality Assurance for Swiss Universities
  • ZEvA - Central Evaluation and Accreditation Agency Hanover

Organization of the accreditation of the accreditation agencies

Four representatives from the universities and four from the federal states sit on the Foundation's Accreditation Council. There are also five representatives from professional practice, including one representative of the state ministries responsible for service and collective bargaining law, two students and two foreign representatives with accreditation experience. A representative of the agencies belongs to the Accreditation Council in an advisory capacity.

The two student representatives are named by the University Rectors ' Conference and then appointed by mutual agreement by the Conference of Education Ministers and the University Rectors' Conference .

The procedure for the accreditation of agencies includes the preparation and opening of the procedure, an inspection, the assessment, the decision and the conclusion of the procedure. The rules of the Accreditation Council for the accreditation of agencies serve as the basis for this.

literature

  • Banscherus, Ulf: Quality assurance of studies and teaching in the university-political debate. About proxy debates, mutual blockades and conceptual alternatives (report on behalf of the Max Traeger Foundation) . Union for Education and Science GEW, Frankfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-939470-69-4 ( researchgate.net [PDF; 263 kB ]).
  • Bülow-Schramm, Margret and Heumann, Christoph: Accreditation in conflict: development paths into the future of external quality assurance . Hans Böckler Foundation , Düsseldorf 2012 ( boeckler.de [PDF; 1.1 MB ]).
  • Kaufmann, Benedict: Accreditation as Micropolitics: On the Effect of New Control Instruments at German Universities . VS, Verl. Für Sozialwiss., Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-531-18564-4 .
  • Serrano-Velarde, Kathia: Evaluation, accreditation and politics: for the organization of quality assurance in the course of the Bologna process . VS, Verl. Für Sozialwiss., Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15843-3 .
  • Siever, Marco: Quality assurance through program and system accreditation in the German university system: with special consideration of the legal situation in Baden-Württemberg (=  series of publications on university law . Volume 2 ). Kovač, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8300-5787-1 (Tübingen, Univ., Diss., 2011).

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Section 2, Paragraph 1 of the (North Rhine-Westphalian) law establishing a foundation "Foundation for the Accreditation of Study Programs in Germany"
  2. ^ Announcement of the Saxon State Chancellery on the entry into force of state treaties. Retrieved January 12, 2020 .
  3. ^ Foundation website .
  4. Accreditation Council: Press release from June 4, 2013 (PDF; 73 kB), accessed on July 22, 2013.
  5. § 7 of the Law on Establishment