CHAPTER 1

THE ACCREDITATION PROCESS

1.1 Accreditation

Accreditation is a process used in many countries and in many sectors to ensure the quality of programs and services to the public. In higher education, accreditation is widely used to serve two purposes:

· assuring the quality of educational programs and their graduates

· improving the quality of education.

Accreditation has six basic elements.

· A set of standards by which programs are judged.

· A self-evaluation by the faculty, describing how they work to meet the standards and giving the faculty’s own evaluation of how well they achieve the standards.

· A visit by a team of expert peers trained to review the material in the self-evaluation and other documents, to observe facilities and classes, and to interview deans, staff, students, and others

· A report of the visiting team with its own assessment of how the faculty meets the standards for accreditation, along with a confidential recommendation about the accreditation status of the programs.

· A response written by the visited dean if the visiting team failed to consider relevant information, or if there is important new information after the visit.

· A decision by a decision-making body based on evidence from the faculty and from the visiting team.

The Turkish system of accreditation for teacher education provides a quality assurance system based on expert judgement through these components.

· A published set of standards written for Turkish teacher education, developed by Turkish academic staff, pilot-tested in six faculty visits, and reviewed at a national seminar.

· An explication of each standard, by indicators, evidence, and grading.

· Assessors selected from academic staff nominated by faculties.

· A training program for assessors.

· A conflict of interest policy applied to the selection of each assessor for each visit.

· A training program for faculty staff to prepare them for the accreditation process.

· The faculty self-evaluation and documents, which form the basis for the accreditation visit.

· A detailed schedule of meetings and issues to explore during the accreditation visit.

· The accreditation visit itself, involving a team which works together to reach judgements about teacher education programs.

· Team judgements based on triangulation: considering data from a number of sources for each standard.

· A holistic judgement made by the team, based on the gradings for each standard, with an overall grading of each standard domain.

· The opportunity for the dean to correct factual errors in the report.

· An opportunity for the faculty to respond to matters of judgement in the team report.

· A YÖK group to consider the evidence from each visit (the self-evaluation, the team report, and the faculty response), and make recommendations to YÖK.

· An accreditation decision made by YÖK.

Accreditation can help improve the teacher education system as well as improve individual programs. This occurs in two ways. First, the development of standards articulates national expectations for the quality of teacher education programs. National bodies, universities, and individual faculties try to ensure that programs meet the specified standards. Second, the findings of visiting teams help to identify issues and problems which are common throughout the system. By receiving and reviewing the results of visiting teams, the decision-making body can use the findings to improve teacher education.

There are other gains as well. Faculties and members of visiting teams gain professionally by being connected to a set of national standards and a national accreditation process. Faculties learn about best practice in teaching and learning by being members of visiting teams and having expert peer visitors. And the public gains confidence that the teacher education system is reflective, self-critical, and working for continuous improvement.

Thus, the system of accreditation can serve as the focus for a continuing national discussion about the improvement of teacher education. Improvement becomes a cycle as standards are set, faculties work to meet them, and the system gets feedback about further improvements. Then standards are revised upwards to reflect new expected improvements in educational programs.

In order for accreditation to work well, three elements are necessary.

· A clear set of national standards, widely distributed, understood, and supported.

· A cadre of trained expert peers who know the standards well, follow an established format for the visit, and make fair judgements based on the standards.

· A decision-making process which makes decisions based on the standards. It demonstrates over time that accreditation serves the dual purpose of assuring and improving the quality of teacher education.

1.2 Definitions (in the Turkish edition)

To avoid confusion and establish a common understanding in reading this book, some definitions are given.

Aim: A level which a program should reach or accomplish.

Objectives: The knowledge, skills, attitudes to be acquired by the participants in the program (courses, classes, seminar, practice, etc) during the implementation of the program.

Curriculum (Eğitim programı/lisans programı): This includes all courses and extra-curricular activities in an education institution or a department. An example is the program of the primary education department.

Course Syllabus (Ders öğretim programı): This indicates the aims, content, teaching-learning activities, assessment activities, and references related to each course (separately) within the curriculum. The program for each course under the curriculum of the primary education department in the faculty of education is called “course syllabus”. This syllabus is prepared as for a year, semester. Time schedules can be prepared accordingly.

Lesson plan: This is the detailed plan for each course showing the way the course will be given (yearly, monthly, weekly) which is appropriate to the syllabus. Example: detailed plan for a 30 hour special education methods course

Program head: A person in a department such as primary education department, responsible for an education program such as primary maths classroom teaching.

1.3 Accreditation schedule

The number of faculties visited per year, and the length of time between visits will be decided by YÖK. However, the first round of visits will focus on input and process standards, with a preview only of output standards. Later rounds of visits will focus on input, process and output standards. They will particularly consider how well programs prepare students to meet the national competencies of beginning teachers (see Appendix 3).

The accreditation process is long and depends on input from all the parties involved. The first step is a YÖK decision about which faculties will be visited, and the number of programs to be included in the visit.

The following two schedules and the diagram summarise the accreditation process. They also outline the role of each party to the process, under the headings of YÖK, faculty, and team.

Summary schedule

Time	What happens
Six months before visit	YÖK writes to Rektor, outlining the nature and timing of the visit. Letter requests that dean nominates X programs to be reviewed.
Five months before visit	YÖK decides program(s) to be reviewed, and informs the dean and Rektor of the total list. Faculty begins self-evaluation report Faculty begins to prepare documents YÖK selects team chair and members. The chair arranges a pre-visit to the faculty.
Three months before visit	Team chair writes to team, confirming their participation, making preliminary assignments for team.
Two months before visit	Team chair or member selected by the chair contacts the faculty accreditation coordinator to discuss team logistics and confirm pre-visit. Faculty accreditation coordinator writes to team concerning logistics – travel, lodging, computer support, location of initial meeting and dinner.
One month before visit	Faculty sends self-evaluation report to YÖK, which forwards copies to the team.
Two weeks before visit	Chair or team member makes pre-visit.
VISIT OCCURS	See separate outline of visit schedule, section 5.1
One week after visit	Team chair sends draft report to team, for comment *
Two weeks after visit	Based on feedback, team chair sends revised report to dean for correction of factual errors
Three weeks after visit	Dean returns comments on factual errors to team chair.
Four weeks after visit	Team chair sends final report to dean and to YÖK.
Five weeks after visit	Dean sends faculty response to YÖK, with copy to team chair.
Six weeks after visit	YÖK group considers the report, makes final recommendation.
Eight weeks after visit	YÖK makes decision. YÖK writes to dean conveying the decision, with copies to the Rektor and the visiting team.

*See also section 6.1, Report and follow-up procedures