Abstract:

The unprecedented expansion of post-secondary institutions, and the restructuring of the old higher education systems that incorporated within the established Saudi universities have compelled the government to establish and develop a national quality assurance mechanism responsible for monitoring the consistency of the national educational standards and outcomes, and ensuring that they are comparable to those standards and outcomes adopted by highly regarded international educational systems of the same type. For this purpose the foundation of the National Commission of Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA) in 2004 inaugurated a new era for Saudi Higher Education. According to NCAAA, the term quality assurance points to the practices that are followed to endorse that high quality is maintained and improved. Therefore, The NCAAA has developed a set of standards for quality assurance in eleven general areas of activity.These standards are divided into sub-standards that deal with all stipulations within the eleven major areas/standards. Moreover, several good practices adopted in highly regarded institutions are required to be implemented for each sub-standard.

Emerging from the ashes of the General Presidency for Girls’ Education, and merged with the University of Dammam (UoD) in 2009,the College of Education –Jubail (EDUJ) struggled with heavy legacy of abating infrastructure, and low completion rates and stakeholders satisfaction rats. The college young leadership initiated the first institutional self-study in 2010 that yielded (152) priorities for action that included four main areas: processes, products, resources, and stakeholders. Consequently, EDUJ developed a strategic plan for improvement that included all aspects of the educational and administrational processes. Twenty two key performance indicators were identified to monitor the progress of the development the college. In 2015 the college underwent NCAAA external review in through the institutional accreditation of (UoD).The latter was granted unconditional accreditation in 2015 by NCAAA. A quantitative study was conducted at EDUJ where an accreditation exercise was carried out through a mock review for the program of Physics that was attempted by external independent reviewers in November 2016. Data pertaining to the impact of NCAAA standards was collected through UD Quest questionnaire system. UD Quest is a web-based application developed by the Deanship of Quality and Academic Accreditation at the UoD, and used to conduct surveys and obtain feedback from the stakeholders. The analysis demonstrates that the accreditation process has resulted into major developments in the administrational and educational processes. It also indicates significant improvement in the completion rate for all academic programs.

This paper aims to explore the effect of accreditation processes and the impact of implementing NCAAA standards on improving the programs completion rate in EDUJ. Demonstrating a case study of EDUJ endeavor of development and its journey toward program accreditation from (2010-2016), this study concludes that implementing NCAAA standards and quality assurance mechanisms and the accreditation process were successful in enhancing the quality of education at EDUJ and improving the program completion rates without changing the orientation or the philosophy of education at EDUJ.

Keywords:

Quality Assurance, NCAAA, Saudi Arabia Higher Education, Self-study, Academic Accreditation, College of Education.