Guidelines for Dual and Joint Accreditation
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by
ICETE
Dual and Joint Accreditation
This document is part of a set of guidelines that relate to accreditation. In particular, it contains the Guidelines for Dual and Joint Accreditation that provide criteria and procedures for institutions with more than one agency involved in the accreditation process.
Institutions that have already earned accreditation from their government, by a university, or by another quality assurance agency may seek additional quality assurance for their institution and their programmes. There are many reasons for this common practice in European higher education, not least the added value of a subject-specific professional accreditation that relates to the discipline of theology and speaks in particular to its stakeholders.
The ECTE reserves a special procedure for such Dual Accreditation1 cases, both avoiding unnecessary duplication and ensuring compliance with its standards. The ECTE can provide accreditation of a programme by declaring equivalence to ECTE levels and nomenclature. The purpose of this is to ensure quality assurance of not only the academic and institutional aspects of a programme, but also the spiritual and ministerial aspects that are specific to theological education.
For example, a state-accredited BA in Theology may be deemed to be equivalent to an ECTE Academic Bachelor’s. This provides the student with an additional certificate relative to the international evangelical network of ICETE (International Council of Evangelical Theological Education). This is additional ECTE accreditation of a programme that already has government accreditation or university validation.
The ECTE can also provide accreditation of a programme containing the externally accredited academic programme plus a component focusing on evangelical ministerial training. Institutions may want to value their evangelical ministerial programmes by gaining ECTE accreditation for such an integrated programme.
An institution, for example, may want to update its state-accredited academic Bachelor of 180 ECTS with a component of evangelical ministerial training comprising 60 ECTS and submit the entire package to the ECTE for accreditation as Vocational Bachelor equivalent (240 ECTS). Similar criteria and procedures are outlined for Joint Accreditation, where an institution simultaneously seeks ECTE accreditation and the accreditation of another agency.
ECTE Review Committee
Dr Bernhard Ott, Chairman
Dr. Hubert Jurgensen, Vice Chairman
Dr. Marvin Oxenham, General Secretary
