German Higher Education Accreditation:Institutions, Procedures and Standards

Since the introduction of higher education accreditation in the late 1990s,Germany has established a non-governmental and decentralized system of higher education accreditation,which promotes the transition of government's role from an intervenor to a facilitator as required by the new public management reform.The present accreditation system includes an accreditation council and 10accreditation agencies.There are three main forms of accreditation,namely program accreditation,system accreditation and accreditation of the accreditation agencies.Each form of the accreditation has standardized procedures and complete and detailed standards.The German system of higher education accreditation is characterized by the following features:non-governmental,decentralized,meta-accreditated,diversified,democratic,internationalized and standardized.It can serve as an important reference for China.