2020 has begun very well for International Business at The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
The periodic accreditation of the International Business degree programme took place last Wednesday and Thursday, the 29th and 30th of January 2020. These days were not only about obtaining the periodic accreditation, but also aimed at achieving the international CeQuint certificate. Following two years of preparation and a very exciting few days for both staff and students of the program, we are proud to announce that IB at THUAS has earned both ‘stamps of approval’ (preliminary result).
We would like to congratulate the entire IB team, the lecturers, students, the Examination Board, and the supporting staff members on this momentous accomplishment. A special thanks also to our Business Advisory Council, our alumni and our education and industry partners, who help keep us current and robust as an international degree program.
What is CeQuint?
CeQuint stands for Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation. Institutions and degree programmes can have the quality of their internationalisation assessed by independent international experts. If positively assessed, the degree programmes may apply for the NVAO internationalisation seal of approval (source: https://www.nvao.net/nl/cequint).
The feedback from these independent experts was extremely positive. Four out of five standards assessed for this certificate were awarded an ‘Excellent’. Standard 2 (International and intercultural learning) was awarded a ‘Good’. The panel indicated that the degree programme has enough potential and capacity to also raise this standard to an ‘excellent’ in the future.
NVAO standards
We also received a (preliminary) positive final evaluation for the eleven standards the NVAO uses to assess. The NVAO standards don’t award ‘excellent’, only a choice between pass or fail. IB earned a pass for all standards. It’s rewarding to hear that the students are very satisfied and they feel recognised and supported. The assessment also explicitly mentioned the staff’s commitment and enthusiasm. The degree programme also received some lovely praise for its positioning. In addition, the panel noted some areas for improvement but these didn’t prevent the experts from concluding that overall the degree programme ‘complies’ with all standards. We are awaiting the final report for a detailed overview and recommendations.
Yours sincerely,
Rogier Busser and Simone Fredriksz