CHALLENGES FACED BY THE FACULTY MEMBERS REGARDING ACCREDITATION PROCESS AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL

Abstract

This paper presents the issues that the faculty members of the education departments from university face when going through accreditation process with emphasis on data collection, analysis, and writing of reports to be submitted to external accreditation agencies by the National Accreditation Council for Teacher Education (NACTE). The process of accreditation is very important in providing quality and standardization in higher education but it offers numerous challenges to faculty. With the help of a qualitative, phenomenological methodology, semi-structured interviews with ten faculty members of three public universities in Lahore were carried out. Thematic analysis showed the major problems, such as the inability to achieve fragmented and poorly structured data, lack of understanding to keep records in time, the absence of knowledge about the accreditation requirements, and the problems with the data alignment with the existing quality measures. In addition, members of the faculty cited a lack of institutional support, shortage of human resources, and internal politics as being a major hindrance. In spite of these challenges, the accreditation process improves the professional growth and builds cooperation among the faculty. The results highlight that there is need to have systematic training programs, better institutional arrangements and support mechanisms to facilitate the accreditation process. By meeting these needs, institutions would make faculty ready and foster ongoing quality enhancement which would eventually lead to the development of standards of higher education in Pakistan.