Abstract:

International accreditation of Business Schools is a growing practice within the South African Higher Education landscape and a number of business schools are using it more as a marketing tool. Though, international accreditation which is a component of external quality assurance is not necessarily a legislated requirement like institutional audits, quality reviews and programme accreditation which are entrenched in the Higher Education Act, Act 101 of 1997 as amended, a number of South African business schools have achieved, are in the process of achieving or preparing to achieve international accreditation. The Graduate School of Business Leadership (GSBL) of the University of South Africa (UNISA) is also not an exception as it pursues international accreditation with recognized international accreditation associations.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the international accreditation journey of the Graduate School of Business Leadership to join the league of internationally accredited providers of business education. International accreditation, ensure that there is uniform standards and impact of graduates on their communities and the world. The accrediting takes into account the quality of the institution offering the programmes also. A business school must prove that it meets the accreditation criteria as determined by the accreditation body. To date the Graduate School of Business Leadership which is the oldest business school in the South African higher education landscape has yet to achieve international accreditation for its flagship programmes being the Master of Business Leadership and the Master of Business Administration. Gibbs’s Reflective model and cycle and Bain’s reflective framework are applied to unpack the process of earning and maintaining international accreditation by an institution with clear and compelling direction for implementing changes to move towards excellence. This paper argues that international accreditation while being a very expensive exercise is rather elusive for some and is often gained by many after bouts of failure.

The paper acknowledges that undergoing the international accreditation processes does provide useful data on areas that need focused improvement, and which can be used to effect similar improvements to all programmes offered by the business school and not only those being subjected to international accreditation. Therefore, even though international accreditation might seem like an elusive expensive exercise, the benefits for the GSBL are likely to be greater than the accreditation cost. The positive accreditation outcomes often solidify the prestige and make recruitment even better most of the time.

Keywords:

Accreditation, external quality assurance, accreditation criteria, Business School.