The International Commission on Accreditation of Public Administration education and training programs (ICAPA) is the quality assurance body of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA), an internal association of IIAS. Its accreditation criteria are based on Standards of Excellence elaborated by a joint task force including representatives of IASIA and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). This involved input from over 1,500 public administration scholars and practitioners from throughout the world. As such, while there are other national and regional accrediting authorities, ICAPA is the only truly international accrediting body. These are designed to support capacity building for development efforts. ICAPA governance Includes an Accreditation Committee (AC), a Steering Committee (SC) and a Secretariat.
As discussed in more detail below, ICAPA offers particular flexibility in terms of the types of programs accredited-from training programs to PhD studies-and operates in a truly international space. This means that accreditation clients become affiliated with diverse, international group of public administration educators. Its accreditation process is supported by ICAPA's own specialized set of criteria, so different needs can be served in differing ways while supporting the ultimate goal of enhancing public administration. These criteria have been designed in alignment with global development goals. The accreditation process offers programs an important opportunity to reflect on their existing quality and to develop ideas for improved processes and curriculum both now and after the initial accreditation. ICAPA's peer evaluators are in an excellent position to provide programs with further recommendations to improve the quality of education and training programs.
ICAPA provides services to public administration education and training programs throughout the world. For programs in a developmental stage ICAPA can, at the request of the program, provide expert consultancies to advise on the development and building of an outstanding public administration education or training program. For more established, but not yet fully developed, public administration education and training programs, ICAPA will upon request undertake a review which can result in the “rostering” of the program as one that has demonstrated a high level of quality even if its activities are relatively limited in scope. For more fully developed programs, ICAPA can provide full international accreditation based on the conformance of the program with the UN/IASIA Standards of Excellence for Public Administration Education and Training Programs. ICAPA accredits programs at all levels, Bachelors, Masters, Ph.D. and also training programs.
Frequently, the pressures of routine activities are so great as to limit the ability of even the most fully developed programs in the field to pause and assess the effectiveness and relevance of what they are doing. The ICAPA review process requires a program under review to systematically assess what it is doing and why it is doing what it is doing and how effective and relevant are its activities. In order to facilitate this self-assessment, the ICAPA process includes all the relevant stakeholders of a program (students, faculty, administrators, alumni and representatives from relevant governmental and public administration agencies).
The ICAPA Commission, which oversees all of ICAPA’s activities, includes several of the world’s top academics and practitioners among its membership. Commission members include individuals who have served as presidents of many major organizations in the field and who have served as cabinet ministers and in other high level government positions in their home countries.
ICAPA has delivered accreditation to the following programs:
ICAPA provides accreditation services to education and training programs in public administration, public management, public governance, public policy, and public affairs programs. These programs can be supplied by Universities, Management Institutes, Schools of administrations, Schools of government, Training centers at national, regional or local levels, at professional level Vocational and Technical Education, Bachelor, Master or PhD levels.
Interested programs are invited to manifest their interest to the ICAPA Secretariat by filling in a form. Information will be provided, eligibility checked, and membership to IASIA established if desired to get a discounted price for the accreditation services. After settlement of an accreditation service invoice, the program will be added to the annual plan of ICAPA, and a site visit team appointed by the AC, taking into account the opinion of the program to be accredited.
Programs fill in a Self-Evaluation form, which is a reflection on current progress towards achieving the standards, supported by evidence. When the site visit team is satisfied with the Self-Evaluation form, a site visit will be organized. During the site visit, additional evidence is collected. The Site Visit team will file an accreditation report to the AC, which will decide on accreditation. The decision will be endorsed by the SC. Unless ICAPA decides otherwise, accreditation is generally valid for a period of six years.
The ICAPA accreditation fees are:
The institution of the program will support the costs related to the site visit, including flights in economy, accommodation, and catering.
CONTACT: ICAPA@IIAS-IISA.ORG