Types of Accreditation in Germany .1 Study program accreditation .1 Study program accreditation

The introduction of the program accreditation procedures was in 1998. As a result, accreditation is mandatory for establishing new bachelor’s and master's study programs. Then in 2003 program accreditation became obligatory for bachelor’s and master’s programs in all of Germany (Accreditation Council, 2013).

There are eleven criteria for program accreditation:

1- The Qualification Objectives include scientific or artistic qualification, competence for employment and society, and personality development.

2- The compatibility of the Study Program Concepts with the System of Studies regarding:

the Framework of Qualification for German Degrees, the requirements of the Common Structural Guidelines of the Länder for the Accreditation for Bachelor and Master's Study Programs of 10 October 2003 in the respective valid version, and Länder-specific structural guidelines for the accreditation for bachelor’s and master's study programs.

3- The Study Program Concept involves the imparting of specialized knowledge and inter-disciplinary knowledge as well as technical procedural and generic competences.

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4- The academic feasibility guarantee through consideration of the expected entry qualifications, an appropriate curriculum design, information on the student workload, and corresponding offers of support as well as technical and interdisciplinary course guidance.

5- Examination System to be drawn in a form to measure the obtained objectives.

6- Program-related Cooperation to guarantee the quality of the study program concept, implemented in part by other organizations.

7- The program facilities to assure the adequate qualitative and quantitative facilities with regard to personnel, materials, and space.

8- Transparency and documentation to document and publish all study program information in regard to the prerequisites for admittance, the study program’s courses, and examination requirements.

9- Quality assurance and further development in light of valuation results, studies of the students’ work-load, academic accomplishment, and the whereabouts of the graduates.

10- Study programs with a special profile demand application of the accreditation procedures and criteria, taking into account these requirements.

11- Gender Justice and Equal Opportunities to be guaranteed in some cases, such as when students have health impairments, students having children, foreign students, students with a migration background and/or from so-called educationally disadvantaged classes.

These must be at the level of the study program (Accreditation Council, 2013).

The process of study program accreditation is described as follows:

1- Dealing with study programs for Bachelor and Master Degrees from state and private Higher Education Institutions in Germany.

2- Keeping in line with The Criteria for the Accreditation of Study Programs which given by the Accreditation Council.

3- Based on the peer review principle.

4- Carried out by an evaluation group made up of representatives of Higher Education Institutions and of representatives of the profession, all of them being appointed by the selected agency which is accredited by the Accreditation Council.

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5- Including an on-site visit of the institution and on-site interviews with the management of the higher education institution, teaching staff and students by the evaluators.

6- Evaluating the study program’s profile and its academic focus.

7- Ending up with a report of peer reviewers’ recommendations on the accreditation process of the study program.

8- According to the Accreditation Council’s decision-making rules, the accreditation agency will decide based on the peer reviewers report about the program accreditation process either the Accreditation of Study Programs, for a limited period for duration of seven years, with or without conditions, or with the process being abandoned or the accreditation being rejected.

9- Publishing the accreditation agency positive decision regarding the study program accreditation process, moreover the experts’ names and their report in the Accreditation Council database. In the case of a negative decision there will be no publishing; the agency will provide the Accreditation Council with a notification. (Accreditation Council, 2013).

The process of program accreditation in Germany was regarded as a dilemma in higher education reform after the Bologna Process (Kehm, 2006) and faced over the past years more and more criticisms, summarized as:

1- A lack of accreditation agencies and sufficient numbers of peers and experts to get involved in the process.

2- Program accreditation charging the universities high prices. (For example, one program up for accreditation cost one million euros or more.)

3- Program accreditation contributing to developing the program itself and not paying any attention to other quality assurance procedures or the improvement of the university.(Kehm, 2006)

This critical debate among actors in the German accreditation sector since 2004/2005 has driven the question of whether different approaches to accrediting programs might be better suited to solving problems in higher education institutions than the current program accreditation system (Grendel & Rosenbusch, 2010).

153 5.8.7.2 Cluster accreditation

In the German accreditation system, another type of program accreditation has emerged: the cluster accreditation. This form of accreditation means a number of comparable study programs from a higher education organization (i.e., teachers’

education programs in foreign language studies) are accredited in one process by the same agency, which in turn saves the university time and money (Accreditation Council, 2013).

The program accreditation process encourages development within the higher education organization of its structures and procedures to support program accreditation. The program accreditation process enhances the development of internal quality assurance structures. Some program accreditation requirements participated in the development of internal quality assurance structure such as students’ feedback in student course evaluations, graduate tracer studies, and tools to measure students’ workload (Accreditation Council, 2013).

5.8.7.3 System accreditation

In December 2007 after ten years of applying program accreditation, a new accreditation approach was introduced in the German accreditation framework (KMK, 2007).

The system accreditation was the most seriously considered option among alternative approaches for program accreditation. The reason for this was the nature of this system. This approach accredits the internal quality management system of the higher education institution while the task of program accreditation lies with the quality assurance unit in the higher education institution, even though they have similar approaches. It is a further development in the existing process of the study program accreditation, simplifying the process and reducing the workload for the higher education institutions. Both types of accreditation coexist, and the higher education institution can select one of them.

The central mechanism of the system accreditation is that the higher education institution must demonstrate its own ability to ensure that its system and study programs consistently meet the criteria. The main focus of this procedure is the internal quality assurance system in the area of teaching and learning of the higher education organization. The evaluation process is conducted to assess the appropriateness of the teaching and learning

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structures and processes and their effectiveness in achieving the qualification objectives and guaranteeing high quality of the study programs. The higher education internal quality assurance system is evaluated using three different measures: ESG, KMK, and the criteria of the Accreditation Council being applied. Once this has been confirmed, the higher education institution is legally considered competent to approve study programs established within its accredited system, meaning these are accredited as well (Accreditation Council, 2013).

The requirements of the internal quality management and quality assurance systems to be accredited are explained in six criteria, which means there is no one prescribed design for it.

It is the higher education institution’s responsibility to build its own internal quality assurance system in light of these criteria (Accreditation Council, 2013). The criteria are as follows, according to the Accreditation Council (Accreditation Council, 2013):