by Descima Hamilton

Senior Education Officer

The proliferation of diploma mills has made the establishment of the legitimacy of institutions central to quality assurance. The AU provides help to individuals, companies, and training agencies in determining whether the institutions they are considering are genuine. This service is most underutilised by the public. In fact, there has been a steady decline in the use of this service over the period January 2014 to December 2016. In 2014, a total of 374 inquiries were received by the NAB/AU. There was a dramatic decline in 2015 when the numbers of inquiries plummeted to 156. This dive continued in 2016, when only 95 persons sought the services of the NAB/AU in establishing whether one or another institution should be considered for academic investment.

To enable the registration of the services of academic providers seeking accreditation, academic quality assurance training is offered by the NAB. This service is not provided on a routine basis, but is surgically delivered. To deliver this training the

AU/NAB has drawn, and continues to

draw, on its Caribbean Area Network for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education (CANQATE) colleagues and the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT) has been particularly supportive. Some resistance to the registration process has been encountered. Providers which predate the NAB have been less than co-operative.

At the end of 2016 and during the first quarter of 2017, the AU/NAB was able to begin the revision with a view towards upgrading its services. With support from the Caribbean Development Bank’s stand-by facility, which is funded by the European Union, a new manual has been produced. Two officers were given the opportunity to do a work-study-tour with the Barbados Accreditation Council. Act no. 35 of 2006 has been brought under the microscope to give the Act more teeth and a website has been designed. The site is expected to provide more information about the services of the AU/NAB. A consultancy in communication is anticipated to be completed by the end of June 2017.

The mammoth task of dealing with an ever expanding tertiary level public is executed on a daily basis by a team of five, which includes an office attendant. The chairperson is just a call away from the decision-making process and Joye Browne, a retired educator, is always ready to lend support where necessary. There is also a cadre of professionals, central to the function of the AU/NAB, serving as our External Evaluators.

Two groups of persons were trained

as evaluators, one set in 2011 and the other in 2016. The 2011 evaluators were trained by Dr Ruby Alleyene, who recently completed the revision of the system of Registration and Accreditation in St Vincent and the Grenadines. The 2016 evaluators obtained their training from current chief executive officer of the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago Michael Bradshaw.

As we observe World Accreditation Day, the NAB/AU acknowledges the services which are being offered (verification of credentials, institutional searches, academic quality assurance training, and the registration of the services of academic providers) and looks forward to an expansion which meets the need of an emergent tertiary level academic-scape.