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National Accreditation Center of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan (further NAC) was created by the Government decree of the Republic of Kazakhstan from April 29, 2005, ¹ 405 according to State program of the development of education for 2005-2010.
NAC activity is directed at intellectual development and spiritual potential of people, HEI modernization and the realization of the tasks, determined by the President N.A. Nazarbaev aimed at providing competitive capacity of HE and recognition of kazakhstani education in the world community.
Mission: to conduct institutional and specialized accreditation of HEIs, nostrification and recognition of certificates; to make contribution to the development of higher education quality.
Main objectives of NAC:
- realization of the programme, according to which Kazakhstan would be among the 50 competitive countries of the world; implementation of an accreditation model harmonized with international quality assurance practice;
- approval of the high standards of the quality of education of Kazakhstan, vocational and educational programs to increase competitive capacity of the national system of higher education.
Tasks:
- to develop standards and assessment criteria;
- to conduct institutional and specialized accreditation delivering vocational and postgraduate academic programs;
- to organize and to perform training courses in an accreditation sphere;
- to learn foreign countries experience and to adopt the best accreditation experience in our system of education;
- to participate in international programs on quality assurance.
Main principles of quality assurance in Higher Education:
- HEI accreditation procedure is delivered on a voluntary basis;
- Educational institutions are responsible for the quality of higher education;
- External assessment is conducted only on objective, transparent and independent basis (without third parties e.g. state bodies of HEI and public organizations);
- The information from HEI is used only confidentially;
- Informing society inside the state and abroad about accredited HEI through mass media and Internet.
And now information about accreditation itself is presented.
Accreditation is a process when an accreditation body evaluates the quality of HEI activity as a whole or of a particular academic programme in order to be sure that they meet all determined standards and criteria.
Types of accreditation: institutional accreditation, specialized accreditation, national accreditation, international accreditation.
Institutional accreditation implies accreditation of a HEI as a whole. Specialized accreditation is a process of accreditation of academic programs. National accreditation is accreditation of educational organizations or programs within the country. International accreditation is accreditation of particular vocational academic programs provided by a foreign agency.
Stages of accreditation procedure:
1st stage – self-evaluation (internal assessment);
2nd stage – external assessment by a commission of experts;
3rd stage – obtaining of accreditation certificate.
HEI conducts the self-evaluation procedure on the base of standards and criteria of institutional accreditation within 6-18 months, and comprises all activities. After this procedure they send self-evaluation report to NAC. During the self-evaluation, NAC gives consultations according to preliminary agreement.
After the self-evaluation procedure accredited HEI (no less than 1 month before site visit) should send NAC 5 copies of a self-evaluation report (in Kazakh and Russian languages), which is studied by all members of the expert group before the site visit. Further, the expert commission visits HEI and checks the facts.
The period of the site visit is about 2-4 days. Regulations of the expert group work in HEI are established according to the Guideline created by NAC. NAC experts perform site visit and report preparation in 1-2 days. They send results to educational organizations.
NAC Council on accreditation examines the reports and recommendations provided by the expert commission, and also the materials on accreditation.
Council on accreditation consists of representatives from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, National Accreditation Center MES RK, higher education institutions, scientific institutes and public organizations. Council membership is asserted by the decree of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan. HEI accreditation is carried out at the expense of a HEI.
Taking of a final decision by the Council
NAC analyzes the reports and recommendations provided by the expert commission, and sends them for the Council to take the final decision. Expert commission’s positive report and NAC conclusions are necessary for making positive decision by the Council.
Decision of the Accreditation Council can be as following:
- Accredit HEI for a 5-year period;
- Accredit conditionally for a limited period provided elimination of defects (in case of elimination of defects the period of accreditation is equal to 5 years in aggregate with the time of provisory accreditation);
- Accreditation refused.
The period of conferment of the status of an accredited HEI is equal to 5 years. After this period HEI should pass the process of re-accreditation to prolong the term of accreditation.
In case of positive decision on accreditation NAC publishes a short report in mass media and Internet.
For the following procedures after conferment of accreditation NAC can send the expert commission to check up the elimination of defects.
Important part of NAC work is nostrification of the documents.
Nostrification is recognition of a diploma, a title and a scientific degree acquired in a foreign country by the state body of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The department of nostrification of National Accreditation Center of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan carries out the procedure of documents nostrification acquired in foreign countries since November 2005.
The functions of the department of nostrification:
- To carry out the procedure of recognition and nostrification of apostilized or legalized documents of education according to the Regulations (equivalency ascertainment);
- To make suggestions to the Committee for supervision and attestation in education and science (further - Committee) about introduction of complementary criteria of nostrification and prospective development of the order and the procedure of nostrification and recognition;
- To invite highly qualified external experts to expertise the documents acquired in foreign countries according to the State Obligatory Education Standards of the Republic of Kazakhstan;
- To organize meetings of the expert commission to make decision on recognition and nostrification of the documents;
- To make suggestions to the Committee about recognition and nostrification, and to issue the certificates on recognition and nostrification by the set form according to the Committee order.
For conducting the procedure of recognition and nostrification NAC has the Commission of experts including 3 representatives of NAC, 4 representatives of the MES RK. The working commission includes the head of planning and monitoring of preparation of medical and pharmaceutical staff of the Department of Education, Science and International collaboration of the Ministry of Public Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan, representatives from five higher education institutions, a college and a school of Astana city (rectors, provosts, and directors).
For simplification and development of nostrification and recognition procedures, the administration of NAC MES RK takes decision about creation of a unified and a centralized system of work. At present we try to implement the systems of “Automatic Software” for the procedures of recognition and nostrification.
NAC is ready for collaboration with all organizations, funds and agencies in a sphere of accreditation and the quality of organization work. The principle of future education is the guarantee and the quality assurance of education as it defines the competitiveness of the national system of education.
NAC Director: Kalanova Sholpan Murtazovna
Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor
Address: The Republic of Kazakhstan
010002 Astana
Imanov str., 20
Tel\Fax: 8 (3172) 97 99 40
e-mail: nac.edu@mail.ru
