CCU

I was just using deja.com/google to look at AED and saw a post from Pbocij that doesn't show up on my newsreader. (Many posts don't, which is a blessing I guess.) Since it brings up a relevant issue, I'll tack it on here.

OK. As I understand it, 'GAAP' is an American thing. The "GAAP criteria" that Dr. Bear lists in his book came out of a convention of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. It simply summarizes the references that American university registrars most often consult.

If you are talking about the UK, that complicates things. Most likely British admissions officers use similar criteria, but I'm not sure if we know that for certain. Pehaps others can comment.

And when we move from university admissions to hiring in business and industry, we have moved one step further from GAAP. Most likely similar references are used once again, but we need confirmation.

My guess (and it's only a guess) is that the UK may typically weight the Commonwealth Universities Yearbook more heavily when dealing with Commonwealth countries like Malawi. And frankly, I don't think that CPU/CCU has a prayer of becoming a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities and being recognized by them as a peer institution.

This is all assuming that the Malawi "accreditation" really is the normal Malawi state approval like that possessed by the University of Malawi, and not just some vague endorsement that means absolutely nothing.

All in all, my personal suggestion is to stay away from CPU/CCU. It sounds like a bomb ticking to me.

 

Institutions in a country like Malawi have several ways of meeting GAAP. One is the Commonwealth Universities Yearbook. Another is the International Handbook of Universities. I would really question a school that technically met GAAP by its inclusion in the IHU (due to its approval by the higher education authorities in Malawi) but was not in the Commonwealth Universities Yearbook. This has "Berne" written all over it.

Rich Douglas

 

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

My interest was in the idea of an institution gaining accreditation on a technicality, rather than on quality, etc.

As a UK resident, we don't really have a problem with the validation of UK degrees - they either come from somewhere supported by the DfEE (and are therefore valid), or they don't. However, I have come across cases where people have claimed degrees from various places but have been unable to gain recognition for them. In one case, for example, a chap with an Italian PhD was told that it was only the equivalent of a UK MSc. In another, a chap claimed a PhD from an unaccredited university and was told it was equivalent to a BA or BSc.

As someone who spends a lot of his time trying to catch people who exploit various loopholes, I was interested to see how robust the system really is and whether it's possible for someone to obtain a perfectly valid and recognised degree without necessarily doing an awful lot of work for it!

Anyway, thanks again for the replies and for clearing this up for me.

Paul