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Accreditation Council to get institutional power with Amended Act – Education Minister
An amendment to the Accreditation Act and a proposed Education Bill are expected to be prepared and laid in the National Assembly before a mandatory recess of the legislative body in a matter of months. At least this is according to Minister of Education Priya Manickchand who revealed during a recent press conference that the two pieces of legal documents are currently being crafted.
Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand
Speaking to the amendment of the Accreditation Act, the Minister said that the intent is to allow the existing Accreditation Council to not only have the authority to accredit individual programmes but also the entire institution as well. At the moment the Accreditation Council is only permitted to deal with programmes.
Minister Manickchand has noted though that the move to amend the local Accreditation Act is supported by the Caribbean, which according to her, has gone the way of accrediting institutions. “This makes sense…If we are to accredit programme by programme then the kind of resources necessary would be very, very burdensome for offshore type universities,” said the Education Minister.
The amendment, according to the Minister, will be made to Section 4(3) (c) of the National Accreditation Council Act Number 12 whereby it grants the Accreditation Council the power to do institutional accreditation. Moreover, she noted that “we are amending the Act to give additional power to the Accreditation Council to deal with entire institutions rather than programmes alone.”
Already regulations have been drafted under the Accreditation Act, which are being reviewed and will shortly be sent to the National Assembly.
However, before reaching to the National Assembly, the draft regulations will be sent to the Chambers of the Attorney General to be finalised. And according to Minister Manickchand, “we are happy to say that before the recess, we believe we should have both the amendments as well as the regulations enforced.”
Parliament is set to go into a mandatory recess in August.
And even as work is being done to amend the Accreditation Bill, the Minister disclosed that work is being done to introduce an Education Bill. The Bill is also being attended to by the Chambers of the Attorney General. “This is something that we expect before the recess to be able to lay it in the National Assembly and we are also happy to say that we are almost finished with our final review to allow for an almost final draft.”
Also for this Bill, regulations are also drafted and “we are reviewing those, so hopefully this is one of those Bills we will take to the National Assembly with regulations already done so we can have both the Act and the Regulations looked at, reviewed and passed at the same time,” added the Education Minister.
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