Students’ Participation in Accreditation: The Experience of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Abstract

Globalization requires appropriate level of quality in higher education, which could be reached by accreditation of higher education institutions and programs. This procedure includes involvement of the students. During a decade a big deal of progress was taken place. However, this area is less studied, especially on Kazakhstani context. Thus, the purpose of the paper is to reveal the role of students involved in accreditation by one of Kazakhstani accreditation agencies. Even though, the accreditation was launched in 2001, the actual its implementation started only few years ago, which is followed by series of reforms in this area. One of the main aspects was the engagement of students, which was not considered widely. Thus, the results of this study are unique in some extent. Current research is based on empirical research of 2013, conducted in 1 out of 2 national accreditation agencies of Kazakhstan. The results of the study show that students, involved in accreditation, experience difficulties with lack of guidance, provided by agency, appropriate knowledge and skills of the students. Nevertheless, students are perceived as full partners during the accreditation process. Moreover, they consider the practice of student-experts as a useful life and professional experience.