The History of Accreditation and Its Legal Bases

The History of Accreditation in the Philippines 

Accreditation officially started 46 years ago in 1957 with the establishment of the first accrediting agency, the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU). The general condition of the educational system then must have influenced the birth of an agency dedicated to the promotion of quality in the education sector.  It was a time characterized by structural reorganization and the rapid growth of privately-own educational institutions many of which were uncomplimentary branded as “diploma mills”.

Two (2) other accrediting agencies followed after almost two (2) decades. The Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities Commission on Accreditation (PACU-COA) emerged in 1973 followed closely by the Association of Christian Schools and Colleges-Accrediting Agency (ACSC-AA) in 1976. These three (3) agencies (PAASCU, PACU-COA and ACSCAA) organized themselves into the Federation of Accrediting Agencies in the Philippines (FAAP) in 1977. 

At a much later time (1987), accreditation got initiated in the public sector, among state universities and colleges. Parenthetically, this period was also characterized by the alarming “proliferation” of new state universities and colleges with questionable quality of their academic capability. 

The Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (PASUC) soon sponsored the creation of an independent body, the Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines (AACCUP), which was formally organized in 1989 although it had seen its organizational stage two (2) years earlier. In 1995 AACCUP became the fourth member of the FAAP.

Higher education institutions can choose any of the four (4) accrediting agencies for the accreditation of their programs. In practice, however, the agencies  cater mostly to their respective clientele, i.e., PAASCU, for the Catholic schools; the ACSC-AA, the Protestant schools; the PACU-COA, the non-sectarian; and the AACCUP, the state colleges and universities. Given the long exposure to accreditation and the availability of accreditation services practically to all types of schools in the country, we would expect a record number of accredited programs to date. Unfortunately, only 15% of the higher education institutions, public and private, have taken advantage of the program of accreditation offered by the accrediting bodies.