Review of SINAES
The Sistema Nacional de Accreditacion de la Education Superior (SINAES) from Costa Rica requested that INQAAHE conduct an “adherence review” of the agency. This review, conducted by a team of three highly experienced international and independent evaluators, measured the policies and practices of SINAES against INQAAHE’s “Guidelines of Good Practice in Quality Assurance.”
The team visited the SINAES offices from the 22nd to 24th March 2010, conducting there and elsewhere in San Jose a series of interviews with the National Accreditation Council, the SINAES Executive Director and staff, the Minister of Education, the rectors of adhering private universities, the quality managers from a variety of public and private universities, an impressive number of representatives from organizations and government agencies that collaborate with SINAES, national peers, and students. These scheduled interviews together with the substantial amount of information and analysis provided by SINAES in its self-study documents and annexes allowed the team to conduct a thorough and impartial review.
The team determined that SINAES met fully ten of the INQAAHE Guidelines and it provided several commendations for how carefully SINAES had structured the agency and its accreditation programs to meet and, in some cases, exceed the international good practices. The team determined that SINAES substantially met the two other INQAAHE requirements, one that called for a formal appeal process involving people not involved in the contested decision and the other that called for policies and procedures related to transnational/cross border education. In both situations, the team noted that in practice, if not in policy, SINAES was meeting the spirit of the Guideline if not exactly meeting the letter of it.
The team has concluded that by meeting fully or substantially all of the INQAAHE Guidelines, SINAES is well positioned to maintain its excellence and credibility in the future.
The INQAAHE review report of SINAES can be downloaded below.
| INQAAHE Review Report SINAES (PDF / 247.2 KB) |