Establishment of the Japan Association for Quality of University Education and Its Overview

Abstract

The Japan Association for Quality of University Education (JAQUE) was approved as an organization for the accreditation of universities by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) on August 21, 2019. Since the Certified Evaluation and Accreditation System began in 2004 in Japan, every university has undergone the second cycle accreditation and the third one is already being conducted. What was the reason for thinking that a new organization was necessary at the time? In this paper, the authors look back at how the Japan Association of Public Universities deeply felt a sense of crisis that one institution under evaluation would have been abolished, and point out that this has changed their approach to efforts to establish a new Certified Evaluation and Accreditation Organization. In addition, the authors review the evaluation method that has been embodied in the new system. The possibility of the new form of accreditation that arose from the experience will be described, although the accumulation of evaluations is still insufficient.