ASU achieves global accreditation from prestigious British QAA

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Applied Science University (ASU) has joined an elite group of only 11 higher education institutions in the world by achieving the global accreditation from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), UK, making it the only university in Bahrain that obtains the prestigious international accreditation.

This comes on the heels of many other achievements which clearly demonstrates once again the quality of the education and services offered by ASU to its students. The Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) is the UK’s independent quality body and a global leader in quality assurance for higher education.

The global accreditation is awarded to international institutions who have passed the QAA’s rigorous International Quality Review (IQR), which measures global institutions against international quality assurance standards set out in Part 1 of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG).

The review was performed by a team of three independent auditors including a UK, International, and student reviewer, who conducted a comprehensive review of the university’s educational process.

In their report, which included their conclusions and assessments, the review team confirmed that the University meets all 10 of the internal quality assurance standards in the ESG. The review panel also praised some of the University’s good practices and achievements, such as its successful partnership with the British Academy of Higher Education (Advance HE), to offer a fellowship scheme for its academic staff to recognize excellence in teaching and learning and student support.

As a result, a high proportion of ASU’s academic staff achieved certifications at different levels of the fellowship from the Academy. The review panel also praised the University’s IT systems which integrate databases and other sources of information allowing accessibility of data and the embedding of management information into decision-making processes at all levels of the institution.

Professor Waheeb Al-Khaja, Chairman of the Board of Trustees said: “We are delighted with this achievement as we have always been committed to a culture of excellence in teaching and learning, research and community engagement, and it just shows how far we’ve come in our quest for excellence.”