Basic Concept of Accreditation

Accreditation is known as a process of deciding quality standards, and assessing and evaluating institutional performance based on the decided standards. In higher education system, institution includes higher education institution (university, institute, college, academy, polytechnic), and their study programs. It is a kind of external evaluation of related institution. These types of higher education institution have their own specific characteristics concerning their functions, management system, program contents, and student profile.

Accreditation is understood as a decision of quality standard and evaluation of an educational institution (higher education institution) by an external agency. The criteria for higher education accreditation are varied due to the variation of interpretation of the higher education nature.

Barnet (as quoted by BAN-PT in General Guideline for Accreditation of Higher Education, 2005, pages 20-21) points out there are at least four meaning or concepts of the nature of higher education institution.

a) Higher education institution as a producer of qualified manpower. In this case, higher education is interpreted as a process, and the students are considered as raw input, and the graduates are considered as output with certain value in the related job market, and the success is measured in terms of the graduates absorption in the related community as labor force (employment rate) and sometimes it is also measured in terms of graduates’ income level in their career.
b) Higher education institution as a training institution for researcher career. Higher education institution quality is determined by performance and achievements on the institution’s staff in research. The quality is measured in terms of the number of staff awarded in their research activities (in national and or international levels, e.g. obtaining Nobel Prize), or research funds obtained by the institution and or its individual staff, or the number of scientific publications in accredited scientific journals or magazines.
c) Higher education institution as an efficient organization for educational management. Its quality is measured in terms of the increase of available resources and fund, the number of students and graduates.
d) Higher education institution as a vehicle for the efforts to enrich human life. Institutional success is measured in terms of speed of growing number of students and variety of offered programs. The student-staff ratio and student fees are also used as institution success indicators.

The Indonesia’s higher education institutions have certain characteristics containing components of the four types of higher education institution concepts.

Models of Accreditation

BAN-PT adopts two accreditation models, i.e. study program accreditation, and higher education institution accreditation. The two models are conducted based on the same dimensions and standards, and focused to the same aspects.

A. Dimensions

a. Input
b. Process
c. Output, Outcomes



B. Accreditation Standards

Initially, accreditation of Diploma/Undergraduate study program, Postgraduate study programs, and Institutional applied different set of standards.

Fifteen standards were applied for Higher Education Institution accreditation, i.e.
1. Leadership
2. Student affaires
3. Human resource
4. Curriculum
5. Infrastructure and facilities
6. Financing
7. Governance
8. Management system
9. Instructional system
10. Academic atmosphere
11. Information system
12. Quality assurance system
13. Graduates
14. Research and community service
15. Study programs

Eleven standards for Doctor Study Program accreditation:
1. Vision, mission, aims and objective of study program
2. Program management and governance
3. Students and guidance service
4. Curriculum
5. Lecturer and supporting staff
6. Facilities and infrastructure
7. Funding
8. Learning process and evaluation of student achievement
9. Research and dissertation
10. Academic atmosphere
11. Graduates and other products.

Fourteen standards for Diploma, Undergraduate, and Master’s Study Program accreditation:
1. Integrity, identity, vision, mission, aims and objectives
2. Students affairs
3. Faculty members and supporting staff
4. Curriculum
5. Facilities and infrastructure
6. Supporting funding
7. Governance
8. Program management
9. Learning system
10. Academic atmosphere
11. Information system
12. Quality assurance system
13. Graduates
14. Research, community service, publication, thesis, and other products.

Since 2009, undergraduate study program and institutional accreditations, and by 2010, all levels of study program and higher education institution will apply the same accreditation standards as follows.
1. Vision, mission, objectives, aims, and attaining strategies.
2. Governance, leadership, management system, and quality assurance.
3. Student and graduate.
4. Human resource.
5. Curriculum, instruction, and academic atmosphere.
6. Finance, facilities, infrastructure, and information system.
7. Research, community service, and partnership.

C. Aspects to Be Assessed

There are five aspects that should be assessed in both study program and institutional accreditation, i.e. relevance, academic atmosphere, institutional management, sustainability, and efficiency.

Relevance is degree of relationship between study program objectives, output/outcome with societal needs at the surrounding environment and global society.

Academic atmosphere shows conducive climate for academic activities, interaction between students and lecturers, between students and students, and between lecturers and lecturers to optimize student learning process.

Institutional Management, including leadership, feasibility, and adequacy. Leadership reflects degree of management capacity and capability to organize resources for optimum program goal attainment. Feasibility reflects degree of accuracy of input, process, and output, as well as program objectives as seen from normative ideal measures. Adequacy, reflects degree of attainment of threshold requirement needed for undertaking a program.

Sustainability, including continuity, selectivity, and equity. Continuity reflects program persistency guaranteed by adequate input, instructional activities, and optimum goal attainment. Selectivity shows degree of program management capability to select input, instructional process, research, and decision of priority of expected output and outcome, baser on consideration of available capacity. Equity reflects degree intention to provide fair and equal opportunities for every one to participate in the program.

Efficiency, is degree of capability to employ available resources for obtaining optimum results. It includes punctuality, effectiveness, and productivity. Punctuality shows degree of exactness in spending time to accomplish program activities. Effectiveness is degree of capability to attain expected program objectives, measured by the acquisition of expected output and outcome. Productivity reflects degree of success of instructional process in utilizing input, measured by the existence of concrete products.




The following diagram shows elaborated aspects, which should be considered in accreditation assessment.

The whole model of Study Program Accreditation is illustrated as follows.

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