The initial information provided to us will be inspected and assessed by a member of our Accreditation Committee. If it meets our required standards, we can then move onto the next stage in the process. If it does not, we may inform the school why they are unlikely to gain accreditation at this point, advise the school to go back to the accreditation guide to complete the missing requirements.
The inspectors will focus on how the school complies with the quality of management and student support; the health and safety of the premises; and the suitability of the available resources for the courses.
The inspectors will need to examine procedural documentation, attendance recording systems, examples of marked work and feedback forms from students*, and statutory documentation, such as approvals from the local Ministry of Education and fire regulations. During their visit, the inspectors will also meet with key management staff and the Principal.
The inspectors will need to meet the Principal and CEO, and possibly the institution’s owners. If possible, a meeting will be held with staff, where everyone will be informed of the nature of the inspection. Then detailed surveys and assessments will take place, teaching sessions will be observed, inspectors will meet with groups of teaching faculty and administration staff and then groups of students to gather their opinions and viewpoints. Finally, there will be a final meeting with the Principal where the inspectors will provide informal feedback on their findings.
This stage is mainly focused on assessing what was observed during the inspection visit and weighing up the evidence of the school’s ability to uphold and maintain the standards needed for accreditation. We will carefully consider the documentation provided to us before the inspection, and the information gathered in the inspection itself.
The final decision on accreditation will be decided by the Accreditation Committee. The exact format of the Inspection stages will vary depending upon the size, location and type of institution – this will usually have already been discussed during Part 1 of the Inspection stage.
During this stage, the inspector will mainly focus on the academic matters, including:
Learning and teaching,
Resources and quality management, together with student welfare and reporting to official bodies.
The inspector will also ensure that any issues that may have arrived during stage 2, has been resolved to a satisfactory standard. They might suggest further improvements to be done.
This inspection visit normally is scheduled to be a one day visit, however, the duration might change depending on the actual size of the school and number of student bodies present. This also applies to the number of inspectors, depending on the range of programme diversity and institution size, there might be more than one inspector.