Regulatory and Accrediting Body- Role in the Higher Education Setting

Regulatory and Accrediting Body- Role in the Higher Education Setting

Introduction

All the public activities affecting the public are either regulated or accredited which involves public health, education, transportation and finance. Both have different responsibilities towards the public sectors. Regulatory bodies receive all their power from law, existing independently protecting the public by regulated activity. Whereas, accreditated bodies are usually build on practitioners, setting standards of practice by maintaining its status and abiding all the laws of the specific field.

Discussion

Regulations for the nursing schools

There are two bodies for nursing school which are “the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission” and “the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education”, they are authorized by “The United Stated Department of Education”, the CCNE and the (NLNAC) which are accredited nursing degrees at the and higher and post-secondary levels in the US.

Regulatory Overlaps

Up to some extent the line between accreditation and regulation is blended in private education because private schools require certain kind of accreditation. Some of the states are independent on accredit ting bodies but some only require the accreditation of the NCATE “National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education” (Goff, 1999).

NLNAC- “The National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission”

NLNAC is made by “elected board of commissioners” who are equally responsible for the policies. The BOC is comprised of nursing services, nursing education, and public representative. It has a peer reviewing circle which is made of evaluated programs; some of them holding positions as appealed panel members and evaluation review panel members. These program evaluators are administrators or faculty at the nursing programs accredited by the” NLNAC” or the nurse clinicians. “NLNAC” has issued some standards for the nursing education since 1917-1937 and started accrediting nursing education program. In 1949, a standard nursing education accreditation was established known as the national nursing accrediting service whose service lasted till 1952.

History and Organization of the CCNE

The “CCNE” is made of the BOC. CCNE board is representing faculty and deans as well as represents the private consumers, practicing nurses and public consumers. The CCNE also has a similar network to the NLNAC and evaluators who keep conducting site visits to the programs that are accredited or they seek accreditations from the “CCNE”. The “CCNE” was independently established from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in 1998.

“NLNAC” vs. “CCNE”

The “NLNAC” is the oldest of the two bodies and accreditates a wide variety of programs, from practical nursings to nursing doctorate. The NLNAC "works much more closely with government standards than the CCNE does," which means that NLNAC-accredited programs which will provide a wide variety of student's assistance in conjunction to the federal agencies and government. Both the bodies are providing guidelines for nursing degree program which keep re evaluating their performances to maintain the quality (Youngker, 1999).

The Regulatory Agencies Governing Nursing Schools

For serving quality services and ensuring the safety of their patients the nursing schools are governed and monitored by various regulatory agencies. Accreditation is the only status indicator the ...