School of Business and Trade evaluation

I am not persuaded by this specific defense. I will refer you to a policy statement of a NACES member in order to see the massive difference in approach to documents coming from unaccredited institutions;

"Institutional accreditation is carefully checked before any evaluation is released. SpanTran does not knowingly evaluate documents from diploma mills, unaccredited institutions, institutions lacking government recognition, or institutions with candidacy for accreditation. The concept of accreditation, however, is subject to the governmental policies of the educational system under review and may seem arbitrary to those unfamiliar with the credentialing process."

Link: https://spantran.com/company-policies

SOBAT would be immediately disqualified under these conditions. Other NACES members might evaluate SOBAT documents in order to deliver a negative verdict. I find this approach to be honest and ethical. No one gives an evaluator the power to find quality assurance where none exists. They are not a government arm, or an accrediting agency of any kind. They frequently do not even go over the practices of an institution, as in a general evaluation. It would be absurd to think that they have this power of "finding the institution equivalent to regional accreditation" Based on what? There are "grey areas", no doubt. But the lack of institutional accreditation is a transparent feature and acts as a disqualifier for accreditation equivalence.

Also, do you have any type of evidence that Validential has released statements to this effect: "This institution does not have accreditation in its foreign country of operation, but the opinion of this third party evaluator is that it is the equivalent of a regionally accredited institution in the US." I see no evidence of that either.

 

Oh, how nice to see that Bashiru Aremu and Christopher Oyat are still going strong! More on the distinguished Prof Dr Sir Aremu here https://www.profaremubashiru.org

Dr Oyat is active, in various capacities, at Ballsbridge U, Crown U, Prowess U, Northwest International U, etc; quite convenient as Gepea is recognized, accredited, or whatever by those schools. Ballsbridge, and its sidekick The Board of Quality Standards are interesting entities, run by Idahosa Charles and family, Bini people from Nigeria.

I see Gepea is accredited by the World Accreditation Commission, WAC. The president of the Oceania Chapter is Sarfraz Lloyd, president/founder of West Coast Institute of Management and Technology, Perth, later West Coast University Panama. Dr Lloyd is from Karachi, Pakistan, once upon a time WCU was an Axact competitor, but got forced out of business by the blokes initially operating out of Block 2, Almas Heights, P.E.C.H.S, Karachi.

 

I would like to see your approach applied in the real world of credential evaluation. Does Validential use it? Do they provide this kind of information about the lack of accreditation in the foreign country of operation? If not, we are debating a pure hypothetical.

 

An approach where an evaluating agency discloses the fact that an institution lacks accreditation and proceeeds to give a positive regional accreditation equivalent assessment based on other considerations. I am saying that this hasn't been the practice among NACES credential evaluators and if you wanted me to agree with this notion, I would prefer to see it applied under real world conditions.

 

Switzerland ,like several other countries in Europe only accredits public universities or business schools. The private schools do not receive state accreditation. They are legally allowed to operate with the private sector employers the deciding factor in whether to accept the degree or not. SOBAT basically offers degrees in two areas-business and Social sciences- unlike other "unaccredited " schools that offer degrees in every discipline under the sun. It is true they could pursue accreditation fr0m various business related accreditors but are upfront about why this isn't done. The Valedential eval notes the private schools are not accredited in Switzerland. SO degree evaluators would look at the quality of the program ( the courses, process etc) to determine it's worth or comparison to other schools. NACES would rule the school's usefulness out based on "accreditation" without acknowledging the private schools aren't eligible for state accreditation. I appreciate all the varying opinions on this post but in real world terms the only opinions that really matter are the person who pursues the degree, the person the Evaluation Service picks to do the evaluation, and the person you are trying to impress with the degree ( employers, or for immigration.) As John Bear once said make sure the degree (and eval service) meets your needs before pursuing.

 

Did the Validential evaluation report specify that SOBAT is among these unaccredited schools, or was this information left as a general comment about the Swiss educational system?

How? Did they send a quality assessment team? And where would they send them, since SOBAT does not have any office? Are they really looking at the curriculum? In what way? Did SOBAT give them access to their courses? It would be nice to find out.

Of course. How could it be otherwise? NACES is acting properly. Their job isn't to improve upon the Swiss system. An unaccredited school does not offer the same benefits as an accredited one.

SOBAT is a good option for certain people, especially those who are okay with earning an unaccredited credential. I just have an issue with an evaluating agency that does not acknowledge SOBAT's own claims and attempts to give them accreditation equivalency through the backdoor, an accreditation that they cannot apparently afford: "SoBaT cannot passes (their spelling) on the expenses to the students and therefore cannot afford to pay such fees to the accreditation agencies."

Link: https://sobat.org/accreditation/

 

When it comes to filling learning gaps, you can fill them with material from any relevant sources, whether accredited or not. But that isn't the topic of our discussion. Personally, I would not compare ENEB/UI1 to SOBAT for a very simple reason. High standard credential evaluators (For example, NACES members) have different policies on propios. This suggests to me that they should be placed in the grey zone. It's neither universally seen as accredited nor non-accredited. ENEB has a direct connection with an institutionally accredited university in Spain. SOBAT is not in a comparable situation. They are clearly unaccredited on all counts. There are no "different policies" as with propios. It's one policy only: rejection due to a lack of accreditation of the institution and the programs.

 

Validential with just their name alone suggests that their goal is the validate credentials, not necessarily pick them apart like other evaluators under NACES does. Therefore, Validential is pretty much equivalent in value to CUFCE but more helpful due to the endorsements of a handful of recognized state educational organizations. Validential lives up to its name by doing an overall analysis of a program and basically gives its blessing based on how others who do not know the ends and outs of accreditation may view the institution and degrees. Their evaluations are based more on public perception and professional profiles of the credential holders than how one country's accreditation standards matches another one.

 

Even if they didn't come out and say it, it could be implied by the positive results that we are seeing with non-accredited schools and/or programs. They should state that they are here to validate, not necessarily evaluate, the credentials but then they would not be taken as seriously and may receive little to no business. CUFCE is more expensive and they give equivalency degrees which are essentially the rough equivalent of state-authorized degrees.

 

Since they've granted an RA equivalency for Selinus U., I wonder if Validential might do the same for the founder's other University - Auream Phoenix U. - a University for Women. That's the outfit that awards Quantum Healing degrees. The scientific community largely regards quantum healing as nonsense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_healing

Also, I wonder why this University for Women has to be headed by a man? Does somebody think women can have a school strictly for them, but they can't - or shouldn't be allowed to - run it?

I note that Auream Phoenix U. is now "accredited" by AHQSE. A corporate division of Uniselinus Europe Ltd. Obviously, an in-house "accreditor" for Selinus and its related enterprises.

I was unable to find any info about Validential and any Auream Phoenix degrees. Yet. My sniffer says there likely will be...

 

They’re really going against international standards of credential evaluation. Even if one were to take the most charitable view possible and believe that Validential is simply using a different model from standard credential evaluation procedures and moves into “quality assurance equivalency” (this would then explain why they are giving RA equivalency to completely unaccredited schools from around the world), it would be incumbent upon them to show the general steps that are taken as part of the novel procedure. How else are you supposed to trust them as a customer? It’s not a valid excuse to say that this revelation may result in a loss of potential partnerships. Too bad.

What are they specifically doing when you hand them your foreign transcript? This is a perfectly normal question. What resources are they using to provide this quality assurance equivalency? This would normally require a toolkit that’s similar to the one utilized by a reputable accreditation agency. Does Valdiential possess such costly resources? How could this quality assurance equivalency be accomplished with “next day evaluation”, as advertised? How could you possibly reach a one-day quality assurance equivalency with SOBAT, which does not even list its faculty members? Where are the specific indicators of quality in this case? Is it the coursework? Wouldn’t you need to something more than a transcript to provide quality assurance judgements in this area?

 

And other schools. They've accredited other schools that are not in the Selinus empire, as well. Sicily, Malta, Dubai....

 

All valid questions. Of course I don't have those answers. You could try asking Validential. Good luck with that.

 

They seem to just be translating the grades and credits from the foreign equivalent to the US/Canadian equivalent. If the school has an exemption or any type of recognition or accreditation, they will likely list these in the evaluation. However, it doesn't seem to matter how the accreditation equates to the regionally accredited US standards. If an institution has enough recognition to legally operate, they will likely give it regional accreditation equivalency regardless or at least that is what they appear to be doing. They are using the more streamlined and trusted FCEs as a reference point by saying that they match their standards while evaluating the credentials. It is working for many people but regionally accredited institutions that require a NACES report know better. It's very likely that most employers, a few colleges, and immigration services will probably see a candidate with a Validential report as going the extra mile for recognition unless they specifically ask for a NACES report.

 

If the evaluation report listed the unaccredited schools as 'legally operating in a specific territory', that would be appropriate. When you're talking about RA accreditation equivalency, it is not something that can be honestly ascribed to legally operating businesses ("schools") in various countries. It is simply unethical for an evaluation agency to provide such misinformation.

 

It would be best for them take the "regional accreditation equivalency" status off and just simply say "recognized". Or maybe just put what the degree is since many outside of academia wouldn't know the difference in accreditation.