Do universities need “accreditation”? Notes on genesis and implications of accreditation procedures

The author provides evidence to support his statement that “accreditation” is an administrative phenomenon that has been incorporated into educational legislation, but still contradicts the basic chapters and principles of the national legal system. Accreditation has not brought anything positive to the domestic educational practice. The real change is performed in the direction opposite to liberal and democratic values. Educational process is not centred at the figure of a scientist or a teacher independent in professional self-expression, but at the figure of an official overseeing education. Transformed by local university administrations into a burdensome duty of teaching staff, accreditation does not give any guarantees of the quality of educational services. With the help of regular accreditation and constant “quality monitoring”, its creative component is purposefully emasculated from the educational process. The rejection of the archaic paternalistic practice of administrative trusteeship, the expansion of autonomous self-government, the development of civil law ties and the encouragement of the independence of professional associations and creative unions, the recognition of the pedagogical community of the right to independently resolve social and professional problems could become a counterbalance to the bureaucratic apparatus, the excessive strengthening of which is dangerous for the very foundations of state order.