Accreditation was born nearly 60 years ago in the United States, as an answer to the increasing enrollment in universities phenomenon that started after the World War II and because of the urgent need to regulate a market – basically of private colleges and universities – that began to grow significantly fast, challenging to maintain high levels of quality.

Some years later, the quality movement and the ‘benchmarking’ concept appeared as part of a new post-war international business stream that aimed to change and improve a low-quality label that countries, like Japan, wanted to transform into a new image of trust and things-well-done, to be able to compete in global markets.

It wasn’t until the late 80’s and the mid-90’s that benchmarking was introduced in higher education management, first in North America and then Europe. Since then, benchmarking as been an increasing policy, method and tool used by public and private higher education institutions around the world, especially when these institutions have faced external issues and problems. In this way, benchmarking has been a very useful method for universities to assume common challenges, like accreditation processes.

Challenges for US universities

The United States is an international example in higher education, home of some of the world’s most iconic universities and is also a model for accreditation system, with more than 20 years of experience.

Higher education institutions in this country have developed a complex collaboration network in different levels, from urban to federal and  – as Americans are used to – they’ve created a proper institutional framework: The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), the organization that supports colleges and universities in their accreditation processes, works as a benchmark hub and even represent their interests.

In this way, ECHA has witnessed the evolution of accreditation in the United States and it’s constantly analyzing and participating in public discussions. In fact, CHEA President, Judith Eaton, has explained that “policy related to accreditation and assessment is being transformed by a variety of factors, most notably the federal money at stake, the price of higher education, the expectation of universal access, the press for greater public accountability, the nationalizing of public policy and the immediacy created by electronic technology.”

In its role as a national benchmarking hub, CHEA has enumerated the essential issues and challenges that impact in higher education accreditation:

• - “Higher education and quality assurance and relationships with government.”
• - “Innovations and what some call disruptive technologies such as massive open online courses and open badges.”
• - “Crossborder higher education in its different forms.”
• - “Regional harmonization of quality assurance as a new development.”
• - “Rankings and quality assurance.”
• - “Links between qualifications frameworks and quality assurance.”
• - “Diversity of private providers, including the for-profit sector.”

The European experience

“In Europe – The Benchmarking in European Higher Education project report says – benchmarking approaches in the higher education sector have developed from the mid 1990s at national level, either as an initiative launched by a national body, by one or a group of higher education institutions or by an independent body.”

“These usually only involved – the report adds – a small number of institutions and were on a voluntary basis. Transnational level exercises have so far been fairly limited. These benchmarking exercises have adopted a mixture of quantitative, qualitative and processes-oriented approaches.” 

“The ESMU European Benchmarking program is an example of a transnational benchmarking exercise which goes beyond the mere comparison of data by focusing on the effectiveness of university-wide management processes. On a collaborative way, the program works with small groups of higher education institutions towards the identification of good practices,” the Council explains.

Finland: the nordic jewel

After years and decades showing poor educational results, in the last 10 years this Scandinavian country has become the world’s best learning model system.

According to a study, developed by the European Association of Institutions in Higher Education, there is also an institution like – as the same in the US – take care of collective interests than concern to members.

“The Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council (FINHEEC) is an independent expert body assisting universities, polytechnics and the Ministry of Education in matters relating to evaluation. The scope of the activities covers 20 university level institutions and 29 polytechnics. The main objective of FINHEEC is long-term development of higher education through evaluation. The main duty of the Council is to assist higher education institutions and the Ministry of Education in evaluations and to develop evaluation procedures in higher education institutions nationwide.”

“Consequently, the Council strongly emphasizes the role of the higher education institutions in evaluations as well as a communicative evaluation approach in its evaluation projects."

Its main missions are:

• - "Assisting institutions of higher education and the Ministry of Education."
• - "Conducting evaluation for the accreditation of the polytechnics. Organizing evaluations of the activities of higher education institutions and evaluations related to higher education policy." 
• - "Initiating evaluations of higher education and promote their development. Engaging in international co-operation in an evaluation. Promoting research on evaluation of higher education."
• - "Evaluation and acceptance of professional courses offered by higher education institutions."
• - “Evaluations of higher education institutions: institutional evaluations, audits of quality work.”
• - “Programme and thematic evaluations. Evaluations commissioned by the Ministry of Education.”
• - “Selection of the Centres of Excellence in Education and Adult Education in the university sector and Centres of excellence in Education and Regional Impact in the polytechnic sector to be used in performance-based appropriations.”

How does your university use benchmarking to achieve goals and objectives? Is it easy to benchmark in your local market? We invite you to share your ideas.