The Barbados Accreditation Council (BAC) ensures that all post-secondary and tertiary educational institutions meet the required standard of excellence. It also sets guidelines and procedures for those institutions seeking accreditation. An Accreditation Steering Committee was setup to provide BAC with the information needed for BCC to become an accredited institution. The committee is charged to:

• Continue the registration process with the BAC
• Plan, oversee and coordinate the self-study process and the writing of the self-study report to enable BAC to evaluate BCC. 

Goal

To present a self-study report that actively involves the entire BCC community. The self-study process will lay the groundwork for continuous reflection, improvement and quality enhancement while upholding the BCC’s vision, mission and values, and will ultimately result in successfully receiving full accreditation from the BAC. 

Objectives

• To create a sub-committee structure that provides one sub-committee for each of the BAC’s six (6) criteria. Each sub-committee will be led by co-chairs who may be members of the Steering Committee. The committees will range in size from five to six people, will serve as writing teams for each of the criteria chapters and utilise processes that gather input from all BCC sectors. These include:
  1. Members of the Board of Management (BOM)
  2. College administration
  3. Divisional/ Departmental Heads
  4. Tutorial staff
  5. Non-Tutorial staff (e.g. Student Affairs, Maintenance, Security, etc.)
  6. Students
• To create a communication plan to inform and engage the BCC community in the self-study process. This plan includes:
  1. Presentation to the BCC Board of Management on the accreditation process, seeking approval for the formation of a BCC Steering Committee
  2. Presentation by the Executive Director of the BAC at the BCC General Staff Meeting
  3. Launching of intimate divisional/departmental meetings
  4. Dissemination of handouts entitled “Quality Assurance: Raising the Bar in Post-Secondary/Tertiary Education and Training”, “Accreditation: Your Gateway to Global Recognition”, and one on “Syllabus Review”
  5. Creation of talking points for Steering Committee members to use at arranged meetings with the student body and other stake holders
  6. Launch of the Steering Committee’s interactive web page
• To create an information gathering plan for obtaining data and information for the self-study report. This plan will include:
  1. Sub-committee meetings to determine location of evidence
  2. Preparation of summary reports of existing documents/data available through institutional research
  3. Implementation of new surveys and focus groups to gather data from all staff
• To create a document review plan for reviewing drafts of the self-study report. This plan will include:
  1. Facilitated discussions by the BCC sectors in order to respond to each chapter of the self-study report
  2. Electronic dissemination of draft versions of each chapter to the BCC community for reflection, review, comment and action.
• To create a site visit plan for hosting members of the peer evaluation visiting team.  This plan will provide tasks, roles and responsibilities for the steering committee and other key stakeholders.
• To create a resource room plan for storage and retrieval of relevant documents and evidence for the peer evaluation visiting team.