Recognized by UKAS?

Hi all,
This is an extract from a non-accredited school website:

"the school has been ISO certified since July 2004. Certification was made after an audit of PUT quality management system by the European Quality Assurance Limited (EQA) to be in conformance with the new ISO9001:2000 standard.

European Quality Assurance Limited (EQA) is independent and highly competent certificating body accredited by United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). UKAS is recognized by the British Government and by most industrialized nations throughout the world".

Also they always states that "our MBA program is recognized/ accredited by the UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation System). UKAS certified that the program complies with ISO 9001" to all prospective students.

What does this mean? this school is trying to mislead the student, isn't it?

Does UKAS really accredit education institutions?
Thank

 

I think, it only means that the administration management system of this school get the ISO 9001 certification instead of their academic program.

 

ISO 9001

From the ISO website
ISO 9001

What does ISO9001 Mean?

Basically it means they have a good customer service organization.

 

Thank for your link Mike

This is a nice article but it only mentions ISO 9001:2000 in supply chain. How about higher education?

I think this school is misleading students intentionally. Maybe they just apply to get the ISO 9001 certificate for their admin system only (or money collecting system ). But, they state that the ISO certificate is applied to the whole school

I would like to hear some more opinions?
Thank

 

We include ISO Certification as one of the 92 warning signs in our Degree Mills book.

As it happens, the founder of Newport University was first through the ISO door, and he wrote the ISO standards for a distance learning school. As Dr. Dalton rather candidly told me at the time, "If I wrote the standards for a cement life preserver, and then manufactured them to those standards, I'd get ISO certification."

 

ISO 9000 was originally designed by the UK government for certifying that a manufacturer had good quality control processes. It was latter adopted as an international standard for general quality controls. Its focus is still on manufacturing related processes though. My software development organization has been ISO 9000 certified for years. It means little for software engineering and even less for education. Any "school" touting ISO 9000 in lieu of accreditation is, IMHO, being highly deceitful and that would almost assuredly indicate that it's a degree mill.

 

Bill Huffman: "Any "school" touting ISO 9000 in lieu of accreditation is, IMHO, being highly deceitful and that would almost assuredly indicate that it's a degree mill."

John Bear: In general, I agree. However, as we point out in the Degree Mills book, in 1999, Eastern Michigan University began advertising that they were the first and only US university with ISO certification. A quick look at their website today didn't find mention of this, although I did learn that tomorrow is Italian Lunch Day in Ypsilanti.