Engineering accreditation : issues, challenges and developments

This chapter presents an overview of quality assurance mechanisms in higher education in general and engineering education, in particular. The chapter describes engineering accreditation, or external evaluation, a powerful tool and the most commonly used method to enhance quality assurance in engineering education with past and existing examples. Several issues or concerns of engineering accreditation have also been outlined and briefly addressed. Important international approaches, mechanisms and developments in engineering education accreditation and quality assurance around the globe have been discussed in the chapter.