The value of the professional accreditation process in Australasia: Architectural academics perceptions

Accreditation is a process wherein the competency of an individual or group is determined. In Australasia, various professions accredit degree programs in a process that certifies that the graduates of such programs may be automatically accepted as possessing appropriate skills, abilities and profession specific knowledge. In Australia, different bodies representing the architectural profession accredit programs on a cycle of up to five years in length. Thus, on average four architecture schools each year are accredited in Australasia in a process that involves almost 1600 students, 80 academics and 40 panellists. Despite the numbers of students and panellists, it is the academics who undertake the work in preparation for the accreditation process and have to respond to any recommendations. As part of an Oceania-wide benchmarking project on architecture schools, Australasian academics were asked a series of questions about a range of topics including professional accreditation. This paper reports the results of an on-line survey and a series of interviews and focus groups with more than 100 academics about their attitudes towards professional accreditation. The paper analyses and categorises the responses into a series of themes and broadly differentiates them on the basis of frequency of response and the relative value they attribute to the accreditation process.