How could a new bill change higher education accreditation in Chile?

On July 5th, the Chilean government submitted to the Chamber of Deputies a bill to reform the Higher Education System in Chile. An important part of this new legislation is the change of the accreditation and procedures to quality assurance for universities and technical institutes in the country.

What does it say?

Should the project be approved, it will create new institutions to oversee and participate in the quality assurance system. For instance:

A new Superintendence on Higher Education

This new public office will be set up to “monitor and supervise the compliance with legal and regulatory dispositions on higher education, as well as any instruction and norms it dictates”.

Moreover, “it will oversee the legality of the use of resources by institutions of higher learning and supervise its financial viability.” 

A new Undersecretariat for Higher Education

It would be created to:

• - Define and develop public policies for the sector.
• - Manage the higher education enrolment system and public finance instruments.
• - Work on quality assessment orientations.
• - Coordinate the rest of the state institutions that are part of the quality assurance institutional system,

A New Quality Assessment Council

His would take over the roles of the current Accreditation Commission, the Comisión Nacional de Acreditación (CNA) and will manage and define any institutional accreditation process.

In one hand, it will have to “evaluate, accredit and promote the quality of higher education institutions that are independent, both in the university and the technical levels, and of the majors or programs they run”.

On the other hand, it will have to “develop the institutional accreditation processes, as well as the undergraduate and graduate education program quality assessment.

Finally, if the bill passes, a new national qualification framework would have to begin development and implementation.

How would Chilean higher education institutions be accredited?

If the Institutional accreditation process is approved, universities could be certified for fixed number of years (8) after the following stages:

1. Self-assessment:

It is conceived as a “critical and analytical process that higher education institutions work on, by using different internal and external sources, to identify and determine in an objective and systematic way its strengths and weaknesses."

Institutions must accredit compulsorily in:

• - Management and institutional resources.
• - Internal quality assessment.
• - Teaching and results on the formative process.
• - Transfer, creation and innovation of knowledge.
• - External outreach.

“These examinations, whose results would be contained in a self-assessment report, would include a self-evaluation of all the institution’ campuses and a representative sample of the total of majors or undergraduate programs.", the bill states. 

2. External assessment

It would continue working as a peer evaluation:

• - Examining the evidence given by the institutions in their self-assessment.
• - Visiting institutions to verify quality standards.
• - Reporting to their Board of Directors with the results.

During the process, the peer reviewers may “run observations to the higher education institutions to deal with any defects they find and affect the compliance of quality standards."“

3. Final resolution

The institution will receive a judgment from the Quality Assessment Council. It could:

• - Accredit an institution.
• - Provide a conditional accreditation.
• - Refuse to provide it at all.

The levels of accreditation should be the following: 

Level C

• - The organization develops its functions with quality.
• - It is capable of keeping its standards in time at all level of services it develops.
• - It is a contribution to society.
• - It has a known mission, an internal organization and adequate resources to run it.
• - Majors and programs provide knowledge and the necessary tools to comply with the graduate profile, and for the proper performance of former students in their jobs, with a national or regional pertinence, if applicable.
• - It contributes locally and nationally wit generating knowledge creation, innovation and external outreach.

Level B

The institution complies with Level C. Also,

• - It has a mechanism for internal quality assurance and resources to guarantee that the strategic development policies that the organization implements in areas or programs it runs, maintains or improves institutional quality, as a contribution to society.
• - Contributes at regional or local level with knowledge generation creation, innovation and external outreach.

Level A

The institution complies with level B. Also, it has:

• - Growth-driven decision-making systems.
• - Improvement policies.
• - Internal quality assurance mechanisms.
• - Resources to guarantee that the strategic development policies maintain or improve institutional quality and are a contribution to society.
• - Finally, the institution contributes at a national or international level with generating knowledge, creating, innovating and external outreach, recognizing the technical system. 

What happens if a higher education institution fails to get accreditation?

The institution that does not manage to comply with at least level C Institutional accreditation will not be accredited, and it will not be able to have new majors or programs, open new campuses, enroll new students nor receive public funding.

In the other hand, all institutions will compulsorily accredit majors and programs for the erosional titles:

• - Doctors and Surgeons.
• - Primary education teachers.
• - High school teachers.
• - Vocational training teachers.
• - Special education teachers.
• - Nursery teachers.
• - As well as all of the doctorate programs they run.

This process is still an open page, as the legislation has just begun its debate in the Chilean parliament. However, it is important to remain attentive on how these elements will be discussed.

What do you think about the new Chilean higher education accreditation bill?