About Accreditation
What is Accreditation?
Accreditation is a systematic methodology for publicly recognizing and continually recognizing the academic standards of educational institutions.
When a school is accredited, it guarantees a level of quality of the school by examining the faculty, curriculum, recruiting, admissions practices, and more.
Around the world, accreditation fulfills similar roles:
- Ensuring the valuable education with high standards and institution examination.
- Impelling educational institutions to continually strive to improve to stimulate institutions to improve the education.
- A trusted third party holding institutions accountable for public assurance of quality.
Checking accreditation status gives you a good insight into the reputation and value of the education at a particular institution.
Any courses you find on Hyperstudy, including online education, are accredited by regional organizations.
In many countries, the Ministry of Education or a similar entity oversees the accreditation of educational programs. In North America (US and Canada) regional bodies oversee the accreditation of schools within their region.
These overseeing bodies must develop the assessment criteria, visit and evaluate the institutions, and decide whether or not this educational institution meets the accreditation criteria.
Why is Accreditation Important?
Your first true understanding of a Distance Learning provider comes from their accreditation. Based on this you can decide if its worth the time and money to attend this institution. More than anything else, accreditation gives you and me the ability to recognize that this institution will provide an education on par with other schools and is in the process of continually maintaining and improving its education.
Accreditation also has very other valuable practical outcomes:
- You must be part of an accredited course to get federal grants or loans in the US.
- It is much easier to transfer credits between accredited programs.
- Quality of education, namely accreditation, is one criteria to evaluate whether or not to hire a graduate of this institution.
Accreditation means that this institution has external checks and balances and must uphold high standards in order to maintain this status.
Accreditation types
Throughout the world accreditation falls under two common types:
- Professional, Program, and Specialized Accreditation
- Institutional accreditation
Professional, Program, and Professional Accreditation
Within academic institutions, there is specific accreditation for specialized coursework like law, engineering, or health.
If students want to become licensed in one of these specialized fields, they will require credentials from a qualified, accredited institution.
Institutional accreditation
If an institution receives institutional accreditation, they have achieved the standards required. The accrediting agency measures the efficacy of school operations, academics, admin, and other services. Accreditations affirms that all of these criteria have been met a source of public confidence and educational prestige among other institutions.
