معايير اعتماد مؤسسات التعليم العالي في سلطانة عمان : تطبيقها على مؤسسات التعليم العالي الخاصة المنشأة خلال الفترة 1997-2002

Abstract

Accreditation is one of the most efficient means to maintain the quality of the institutions of higher learning and ensure their continuous updating of their programmes. The present study has attempted to provide a clear and comprehensive review of accreditation including its concept, importance and classification. It has demonstrated the close link between accreditation and quality on the one hand and socio-economic development on the other. Such a relationship manifests in the institutions' efforts to link their educational programmes with the government's development plans, and their resolve to provide quality education that would yield them both repute and higher turnout of candidates. In addition to its importance at the local level, accreditation, being a source of legitimacy, opens new educational and economic prospects entailed in international treaties and mutual recognition between countries. Many countries have founded official accreditation bodies in order to regulate the running of institutions of higher learning and evaluate their programmes. In this regard, the study highlights the Sultanate's decision to allow private investors to establish private institutions of higher learning as part of its efforts to meet the increasing demand on higher learning and to stimulate the private sector to assume a larger role in the Country's economic development. In order to prevent private investment in the higher education field from turning into a purely commercial venture guided exclusively by material benefits, the Omani government issued a number of rules and regulations aimed at controlling the whole enterprise. The study then emphasized the role of the Accreditation Board in the assessment of the performance and programmes of the institutions of higher learning. The data available to this pioneering study allowed the researcher to draw a number of general recommendations pertaining to the criteria espoused in the accreditation of private institutions of higher learning and the evaluation of their programmes.