INTERNATIONAL ACCREDITATION
& RECOGNITION COUNCIL

• International Recognition for Post Secondary Education (Adult, Trade, College, Vocational, Higher Education)
• Standards are established, maintained and endorsed by the institutions and organizations served.
• Standards are set according to internationally expected academic norms for credible education
• A system that strives to be free of bias (respecting but not influenced by politics, economics, culture; primarily only influenced by a shared interest in quality education)
  

IARC was formed in 1999.

It provides an opportunity for post secondary educational bodies to demonstrate credibility.

It provides a solid endorsement of each member institution, by all other member institutions; deriving authority to endorse members who satisfy stated criteria, in the same way that any industry based scheme is operated by any other professional association.

Historically less than 40% of recognition applications have ever been successful. We believe this in itself is an indication of the success of IARC in differentiating quality education.

It is different to other accreditation and recognition systems in a number of ways:

1. Recognised institutions are audited to ensure minimum standards are met with equal importance given to both procedures, and quality of the education being provided (In our experience some systems have become are weighted more toward procedures).
   
   
2. Standards are set by:
   • education professionals
   • member institutions
   • people from many different countries.

   Other accreditation and recognition systems (commonly) set standards in just one country, and by governments or professional industry bodies.

3. This organization is kept lean.
   
   
4. Bureaucracy and unnecessary costs are avoided wherever possible. Costs to recognized member organizations are kept to a minimum (while maintaining standards).
   
   
   • This makes IARC recognition more accessible to institutions from poorer countries than other costly systems run within wealthy countries.
   • This reduces costs imposed on colleges, so a much lower percentage of the college's budget needs to go toward recognition.
   • This contrasts with some systems that have been claimed to drain 25% or more of a college's budget (and students fees) into dealing with recognition bureaucracy.