Health Systems Administration

Education programs institutions and various other organizations are granted approval by government appointed bodies for the type of services being offered to the community. This is known as the accreditation process, which is required in order to give quality services to the society. This paper focuses on the role and significance of the accreditation process. ROLE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF ACCREDITATION Accreditation is the process through which educational institutions and some other organizations are granted approval by certified authorities.

This process ensures that the community receives the highest quality of education and services. Without such a certifying body, it would be impossible for people to know what exactly is the standard of services being offered by a particular institution. For example, today we understand that there are certain institutions in the United States that are recognized by the government appointed body while others have not been given approval. This distinction helps the community stay away from sub-standard colleges and universities.

Every year we notice millions of degree programs mushrooming in the country, without a proper accreditation process we would never be able to distinguish between recognized and unapproved programs. This process has been specifically designed to give society access to quality services. We need to understand that the role and significance of accreditation centers around the fact that without such certification methods, the society would be caught in a quagmire of institutions and bodies, each of which claims to be the best in its field. Prudence W.

Dalrymple (2001) explains what accreditation is and why it is needed, Through accreditation, society ensures that the goods and services provided to its citizens meet standards of quality and are delivered with integrity. This process of voluntary self-regulation is unique to North America; in most other countries, national ministries of education perform the quality assurance function. Most states maintain some form of regulation of educational institutions (state boards of education, for example), but there is no central regulation of educational institutions at the national level.

Through educational accreditation, professions, businesses, or other fields join with one another to exercise certain controls for the betterment of society at large. When this system of voluntary self-regulation focuses on institutions, it is known as accreditation; when it addresses the individual practitioner, it is called certification." Another significant role played by accreditation process emerges from its ability to rank institutions and programs according to certain ranking criterion. When institutions are given ranking, we come to know just which programs are better than others.

This also explains why certain programs charge more than similar programs being conducted by other universities. This ranking process is strictly based on previous record of the institution, quality of its faculty and courses, and the type of teaching methods applied. Previous record refers to the performance of a particular university's graduates after completion of their studies. H.

George Frederickson (2001) explains what ranking through accreditation process can do for the institutions and community, "The first thing we've learned is that rankings attract a lot of attention both inside and outside the...world of education. We may agree that the rankings are reputational popularity contests and casual social science at best. But they are also exciting and fun. In fact, the ranking business can be most useful if thought of as a postmodern wedding of simplified social science and popular entertainment. Complicated.