Accreditation
The procedures for institutional and specialized/program accreditation have been developed by the Center in accordance with European and international standards, which include the following steps:
1st stage.
- submission by the educational organization of an application for accreditation to the Center with a brief description of the activities of the educational organization;
- signing of the Accreditation Agreement between the Center and the educational organization. The Agreement specifies the rights and obligations of the parties, the cost of procedures, the terms of accreditation;
- carrying out by the educational organization of the self-assessment process, drawing up a self-assessment report in accordance with the standards and criteria determined by the IKCA;
- submission of the first version of the self-assessment report and its examination;
- submission of the final self-assessment report and its attachments to the Centre.
In preparation for accreditation, the Center, in accordance with the Agreement, conducts training seminars for the Steering Committee and working groups on the preparation of a self-assessment report and the accreditation procedure.
2nd stage.
- The work program of the group of external experts is drawn up in accordance with the standards and guidelines for external evaluation approved by the Center;
- The Center forms a competent group of external experts, which includes representatives of academic workers of educational institutions of the Republic of Kazakhstan (national experts), a representative of employers, a student and an international expert;
- information about the composition of the group is brought to the attention of the educational organization before the start of the external audit. If an educational organization suspects that any of the experts may be biased, it has the right to apply to the Center to replace the expert, attaching a written reasoned explanation;
- a group of experts gets acquainted with the self-assessment materials, visits the university and conducts an external audit, generates an external assessment report, which is submitted to the Center;
- implementation of an external audit of an educational organization with institutional accreditation is carried out within 3 days, specialized accreditation - 2 days;
- external experts draw up a report and recommendations on the visit within no more than 2 weeks from the start of the audit, and the head or secretary of the group sends it to the Center;
- IKCA sends to the educational organization the received report of the group of experts on the evaluation of the activities of the university to be able to eliminate minor factual inaccuracies, if any;
- the educational organization, if necessary, has the right to make minor adjustments to the final report on the external audit, if there are individual inaccuracies.
An external evaluation is conducted to assess the consistency of the information provided in the self-assessment report with the actual state of affairs in the organization described in the report. Based on a visit to an educational organization, a group of experts develops recommendations on the accreditation of an educational institution for the Accreditation Council.
The independent Kazakhstan Center of Accreditation pays special attention to the internal quality assurance system, quality assessment forms have been developed for experts involved in the preparation of an expert opinion on self-reports of universities, external audit experts and the activities of the Center's coordinators.
3rd stage.
- After studying the materials on self-assessment and the external audit report, the Center prepares an opinion for the Accreditation Council.
- consideration of materials on accreditation at a meeting of the Accreditation Council;
- making a decision by the Accreditation Council.
- preparation of certificates of accreditation for accredited universities / educational programs.
- sending decisions on institutional / specialized accreditation to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan for inclusion in the Register No. 2 / No. 3
IKCA maintains a register of all accredited universities and educational programs and publishes it on the website http://www.nkca.kz.
4th stage.
Post-accreditation monitoring:
- conclusion of an agreement with the university for post-accreditation monitoring.
- obtaining and agreeing on the action plan of the university for work in the post-accreditation period on changes, improvements, as well as work on recommendations for accreditation.
- receipt and analysis of the post-accreditation monitoring report.
- sending a coordinator and one expert to the university to check the work of the university in the post-accreditation period.
- preparation of an opinion for the Accreditation Council on changes, improvements, as well as the implementation of recommendations for accreditation in the university.
