Accreditation of engineering education : review, observations and proposal for global accreditation

In engineering education, the accreditation and assessment of academic programmes is vital in order to maintain the quality and the status of engineering graduates, and hence the technical workforce. Results of a survey of the relevant literature and observations indicate that various accreditation models have been developed regionally, as well as internationally but most of these models seem to be non-uniform, too complex, non-transparent and, moreover, non-precise. This leads to confusion and growing concerns about the mutual recognition and global mobility of the engineering profession. As a result, there is an urgent need for a systematic global model of engineering accreditation that can be used to assess global professional skills and attributes of engineering graduates. The aim of the current paper is to present a brief review of existing accreditation systems implemented in engineering education worldwide as well as to describe the methodology for developing a global accreditation model in engineering education. Various existing accreditation models in engineering education are briefly discussed in this paper and the strengths and weaknesses of these models are outlined and presented. The need for the global accreditation model has been justified and the methodology for the development of the model is outlined with its advantages listed in the paper.