Accreditation as a provider of theological education is a great thing. You are to be commended for your desire to improve your programmes, be accountable to external standards and increase the quality, efficiency, relevance, transformative power and recognisability of the education you are offering.
Begin by watching this video.
Are you ready for tertiary level accreditation according to the standards of European higher education? Desire and vision are not enough, and this is especially true for theological schools that may be small, relatively new or that have traditionally offered non formal vocational training opportunities.
That is why the European Council for Theological Education (ECTE) offers you as enquire a process to help you discern the extent to which you are ready for accreditation. Notice, this is just an assessment of your readiness and should not be confused with the much more rigorous accreditation process that lies ahead.
There are three possible outcomes of this initial process: 1) you may find confirmation that you are ready for accreditation, and hence initiate the accreditation process; 2) you may see that there are one or more areas that you need to work on before you are ready, and therefore you defer the accreditation process; 3) you may understand that tertiary accreditation is not for you, and therefore decide not to pursue it.
There are several components and tools that ECTE offers you to assess your readiness for accreditation:
- Consult the available information on this website. ECTE has endeavoured to publish as much information as possible to help you understand accreditation. In addition to navigating the various sections under the Quality Assurance menu, you should focus in particular on reading Criteria and Procedures and Standards and Guidelines. If you are interested in accreditation as a micro-credential provider, then read Micro-credential Providers Standards and Guidelines .
- Conversations with ECTE’s General Secretary, Dr Marvin Oxenham. Dr Oxenham is the first person to contact at marvin.oxenham@ecte.eu if you are interested in ECTE accreditation. He will help you walk through some of the other steps.
- An Eligibility Preparedness quiz. This is a simple multiple-choice quiz that can be taken in a few minutes and that addresses several key areas that are important for providers considering accreditation.
- An Enquiry and Eligibility form that provides ECTE with more detailed information about you and also gives you a chance to respond to some preliminary compliance indicators that will be part of your accreditation later on. This form is used by ECTE to determine whether to encourage you to move forward or not.
- Once you are eligible, you will be invited to take an ECTE Accreditation Orientation course. This is a detailed 10-hour online course that is tutored by ECTE staff and that will give you an opportunity to dig in much more into detail, but also to ask questions and receive specific guidance. So far, everything has been free. This course has a fee.
Once you have completed the orientation course, you and ECTE together will be in a very good position to decide on whether to formally initiate the accreditation process with an Accreditation Application.
Please do not be in a hurry for this. Remember what Jesus said about ‘sitting down’ before we set out to build our towers. Are you interested in ECTE accreditation? Begin taking some time now to understand and prepare well.