When a member school decide to seek accreditation, the principal of the institution should write to the General Secretary of SPATS with a statement indicating the intention to begin the accreditation process.
The General Secretary will pass the information to the Accreditation Commission which will contact the College in order to:
- provide all necessary information and forms; and
- to offer assistance through correspondence and in person through a preliminary visit to the college by an Accreditation Commission member or Accreditation Commissioner.
The staff of the college will then undertake a self-study of every aspect of the life of the college. The guidelines for self-assessment, published in the Handbook for each academic level, provide the outline of the self-study. This self-study is essential to accreditation. The guidelines are directly related to the standards for each academic level and follow the same numbering sequence, so that the college staff can easily consider each item in the guidelines in light of the related standards. Please see the Attached “Accreditation Evaluation Format” to help in this guide.
Before responses are prepared for each item in the guidelines, consideration should be given to the overall mission of the institution and a mission statement written or the existing one reviewed. This statement should cover the entire life of the institution, indicate how the school is related to the sponsoring churches and set out the overall aim of the institution as a whole. The statement should encompass all the programmes of the school, at all academic levels.
Each of the items in the Guidelines for Self-Assessment for the academic level at which accreditation is being sought should be considered carefully and complete responses prepared. A Committee made up of staff members and other members of the college community, possibly including students, graduates and members of the governing body, should do this work.
In addition to the written responses to each of the items in the guidelines, various pieces of information and documents are also needed. These include information on staffing and teaching load forms for each teaching member of staff, copies of curriculum, budgets and college handbook, if there is one. Each of these terms specified in the related section of the guidelines.
A representative sample of work done by students and assessed by staff must also be provided. These samples should include at least the main areas of study, representing good, average and poor work.
A copy of the examinations and questions and instructions and explanation of the system of marking are also needed. In areas of study which are not examined in writing, as in some practical areas of ministry training, a description of the method of assessment and a sample of the results should be provided.
When the report of the self-study (consisting of written responses to the items in the guidelines and the various supporting documents) is received, members of the Accreditation Commission will review it. An accreditation visit will then be planned – a visitation team mutually acceptable to the Commission and the college nominated, and a time convenient to both the college and the team agreed on.
The accreditation visit by the team to the college will normally last two or three days. A written report will be prepared by the team and discussed with the principal and staff of the college. The report will then be submitted to the Accreditation Commission.
On the basis of the various submissions from the college, and the report prepared by the visitation team, the Accreditation Commission will recommend accreditation or postponement of accreditation to the Executive. The recommendation will include details of the programmes to be accredited and the exact dates of accreditation. Accreditation is normally granted for a period of six (6) years with an interim visit recommended after three (3) years.
Either the Executive Committee or the Council of SPATS will take the final action on the recommendation of the Accreditation Commission.
- If it is not possible to arrange for a visit at the time the written material is submitted, the Accreditation Commission may make a provisional recommendation to the Executive on the basis of written materials. A final recommendation would then follow when the visitation was carried out, which must be within two years of the Accreditation Commission’s provisional recommendations.
Visitation
The visit of the accreditation visitation team to the college applying for accreditation is an important aspect of the process, but it should not be thought of as the central or most important part. The essential part of the accreditation process is the self-study that is done by the college itself.
These visitations share in the life and work of the school over a period of time in order to assess its effectiveness in training students for a ministry equipped and competent to meet the current needs of a particular church and community. In order to do this it is necessary to:
- see the aim of the institution in context;
- evaluate the capacity of teachers and the effectiveness of the educational process as a whole;
- assess the eligibility of students for a particular programme;
- see how the course of study relates to the context of continuing regional and global issues; involves students in the Christian community and its way of life, and requires them to reflect on its significance; involves students in and provides resources for understanding it and for the opportunity for service within it; encourages the growth of the whole person, and develops skills of immediate use in the Christian community;
- meet with the governing board to review policies and plan for development if possible;
- meet with the staff regarding methods of assessment, methods of education and use of resources;
- meet with the students or their representatives in order to receive their perception of the academic programmes.