Frank Questions About DETC

John, I understand that there is somewhat of a similar relationship between Azaliah College of South Africa and the new Azaliah University of New Mexico, a division of the Azaliah Global Education Group.

Though it would not involve doctoral programs, it still seems there would be advantages of having a US DETC accredited school share some sort of relationship with its parent GAAP South African college listed in UNESCO.

May be similar to the Open U scenario.

 

Hmmm. I'm not sure it's similar at all. The New Mexico school is not new, but is a former non-wonderful purchased by Azaliah. And I'm also dubious about whether Azaliah College of South Africa should itself be considered acceptable by GAAP.

 

Curious to know why you have question about Azaliah and GAAP.

 

GAAP applied to accreditation is a looser set of general principles than GAAP applied to accounting. St. Kitts has sent Berne’s name to UNESCO for listing in the International Handbook of Universities, but this doesn't make Berne legitimate. IMHO, we have an obligation to be skeptical (at least initially) about each university whose accreditation (or equivalence thereto) is to be established through GAAP.

The basic idea of GAAP is that a foreign university should be considered in the light of its own national educational system. If a university is accredited (or chartered, etc.) by its national educational agency, and if the educational system of the country concerned is respected, then the legitimacy of the university should be respected. So my skepticism about Azaliah College stems from my concerns about its standing within the educational system of South Africa. A few pieces of background:

1. There has been discussion from time to time on this forum (and previously on AED) about the various diverse implications of the words "college" and "university." In South Africa, "college" is generally used for an institution providing high-school level education or vocational training. In my experience, the exceptions are historical (e.g. University of Cape Town was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and still hosts the SA College of Music). In the case in question, Azaliah College was established in the early 1990's to provide continuing education for elementary school teachers.
   
2. During the 1990's, South Africa had a diploma mill scandal (locally referred to a "certificate sham" or somesuch, but basically the same thing). With democratic majority rule came a need to improve the educational opportunities of the historically disadvantaged majority. To this end, there was a major push towards in-service upgrading of teacher training in primary and secondary schools. By the mid-90's, over 125,000 teachers were enrolled in distance education courses. Into this fray rode various private colleges, Azaliah amongst them. A contemporaneous report by the South African Institute for Distance Education (Saide) stated that "functioning and transparent quality assurance mechanisms do not exist. At best, institutions estimate the needs of trainee or in-service teachers. At worst, they simply produce courses, register students, collect fees, and pass or fail them at the end of a specified period." Criticism of Azaliah College was reported in the South African press at the time, though details were not provided (and there were allegations that criticisms during that period of change were due to jealousies, vested interests, etc.). In this somewhat chaotic environment, the National Commission for Higher Education was established in 1995, along with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) and its National Qualification Framework (NQF). The National Plan for Higher Education followed in March 2001 (with more news about this to come soon!).
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   In recent years, Azaliah College has received SAQA approval for bachelor's and master's level programs, and it has collaborations with the University of Port Elizabeth and with Technikon Pretoria. So it meets the GAAP requirements. But viewing it in the context of its home educational system (and this is the key point, as mentioned in my second paragraph above) what you have here is an approved institution with a somewhat shaky past and a mediocre reputation -- I would put it on a par with, say, something like ACCIS in the U.S. (I could have said "something like Eastern American University," but that would have been cruel, probably untrue, and too much of an inside joke anyway.)
   
   On the other hand, I believe that there are some truly wonderful distance education opportunities based in South Africa, including Unisa, Potchefstroom, and Pretoria.
   
   Enough said. In fact, too much said.

 

Thanks Yan. But I don't think this gets us any closer to the detailed nature of the collaboration.

One thing that amuses me is that the U.S. Trademark for "United States Open University" is actually owned by Open University of the U.K., not by the local institution.