Brief History of Accreditation Bodies 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. 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 ACSC-
AA) 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.

It must be noted that accreditation in the Philippines started as a

purely private and voluntary undertaking. The framers of the
accreditation program stress that the concept thrives on self-
regulation that focuses on the internally-driven private initiative
to improve the quality of education. No government participation
had been conceived to be necessary. The private and voluntary
nature of accreditation has been preserved to this day. The
accrediting agencies enjoy autonomy with very minimal
accountability to the government.