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MBA and bachelor of commerce accreditation is keeping this university internationally competitive. By Aileen Macalintal
deakin University’ s MBA and bachelor of commerce have been accredited by the European Foundation for Management Development’ s evaluation program.
The EFMD’ s Programme Accreditation System evaluates the quality of business and management degrees at a global level.
Pro vice-chancellor professor Gael McDonald, from Deakin University’ s faculty of business and law, welcomed the recognition.“ We are very proud of achieving EPAS accreditation. This was a rigorous and lengthy process, which required widespread support within the faculty and from industry partners and alumni.”
McDonald said the accreditation shows the long-term commitment to a quality agenda and programs by staff and students. She said the business programs were successful in gaining the EFMD accreditation for a number of reasons.
“ Both the MBA and bachelor of commerce have been running for over 30 years and are the faculty’ s flagship programs. EPAS validates that our MBA and bachelor of commerce are high-quality programs in a global context.”
She said their success can also be attributed to their digital frontier, which is part of a mission to drive educational innovation in tertiary business education to engage students.
Teaching is also an important component in their success, she said.
“ The EPAS reviewers commended our
26 | March 2013 programs for their flexible, blended learning teaching environment, pedagogical development and innovation, student support programs and responsiveness to students, and the balance between academic and practical inputs within the curricula.”
She said everyone in the faculty contributed to the two flagship programs and their accreditation.
“ The delivery of the MBA and the bachelor of commerce is a complex task and involves many people and it is because of their efforts that we have achieved this prestigious accreditation.”
The faculty and university also recognise that processes like this are needed“ to remain internationally competitive in an increasingly challenging educational environment.
“ In addition to the international recognition, accreditation has shone a spotlight on the entire portfolio of program activities from strategy to academic staffing, program design and delivery, quality assurance processes, internationalisation and our corporate connections.”
The accreditation also enables Deakin to review its activities. An integrated evaluation ensures that strategies are aligned with implementation, as well as an embedded culture of continuous improvement, she said.
McDonald said the accreditation would better help students evaluate the strengths of Deakin’ s business courses.“ Students can have confidence that our programs are ratified by a prestigious international accreditation body and that they will graduate from a program that has a global reputation for quality.”
“ EPAS accreditation also ensures that our students have met key graduate outcomes that equip them to operate in an international business work environment.”
The accreditation also invests in the current and future reputation of the programs, which is also valuable to Deakin’ s alumni network’ s support for their programs.
She said the accreditation process reinforces the faculty’ s strengths in leadership, academically qualified staff and its local and regional reputation among employers for developing business-ready graduates.
“ Participation in accreditation is multifaceted and an institution’ s participation should foremost be about quality improvement. However, as most institutions would agree, the aim of accreditation is not an unfettered rise in enrolments, but instead is to attract greater interest from students in our target markets,” McDonald said.
EPAS accreditation is renewed every three to five years.
McDonald said this means a constant review of the programs for their responsiveness to stakeholder needs and for quality teaching and curriculum innovation. n