Other International Activities

Other International Activities

JABEE signed a MOU of international activities among the Japanese Society for Engineering Education and the Institution of Professional Engineers, Japan to cooperate with the mobility of Japanese engineering-related human resources to foreign countries since 2010.

JABEE and the Japan Society of Professional Engineers (JSPE) signed a MOU of cooperation on activities to encourage Japanese engineers who wish to acquire the professional qualification of Professional Engineer (PE) in the United States etc. JSPE, established on September 2000, (http://www.jspe.org/history.html) is a Non-Profit-Organization and only affiliated organization of National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE, USA) in Japan. JABEE graduates are deemed as substantially equivalent to ABET graduates under the Washington Accord and it is recognized as meeting one of requirement at the time of PE registration in each states.

JICA Technical Cooperation project

JABEE is implementing a 5-year JICA technical cooperation project to assist Indonesia in establishing the Indonesian Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (IABEE).
In August 2012, the Indonesian Government enacted the Higher Education Act which requires each field of discipline to establish an education program accreditation agency. The Indonesian Government requested support from the Japanese Government, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) entrusted JABEE to provide technical support. As for the preparation of a JICA Technical Cooperation project, JABEE Executive Managing Director was assigned for one year from October 2013 as a JICA expert in Jakarta to prepare a project proposal. The expected outputs of the technical cooperation project are to establish the Indonesian Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (IABEE), to set up Indonesia-specific accreditation criteria for engineering education, to foster program evaluators, to hold advocacy seminars to education programs and to implement outcome based evaluations. One of the project benchmarks is that IABEE will become a provisional member of the Washington Accord by 2019. JABEE was contracted by JICA as an implementing body of a 5-year JICA technical cooperation project, which started in November 2014.
In December 2014, JABEE conducted its first oversea evaluation to Mechanical and Biosystem Engineering Department of Bogor Agricultural University.
Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the project has been extended until August 2023 although successfully completed with IABEE admission to the Washington Accord as its 23rd signatory.

Supports for Establishment of Oversea Accreditation Bodies and Oversea Evaluations & Accreditations

Recently, a number of study programs from different countries contact JABEE to seek for JABEE accreditation. However, in principle, JABEE does not conduct accreditation activities out of Japan.

The Washington Accord has a policy that the signatories have an uncontested right within their respective national or territorial boundaries (jurisdiction). The signatories of the Washington Accord recognize under the Accord the substantial equivalency of study programs accredited by the signatories only in their jurisdiction. In other words, study programs accredited out of jurisdiction are not considered as substantially equivalent under the Accord.
JABEE is of the opinion that if multiple accreditation agencies accredit study programs in a jurisdiction, study programs are most likely to seek for “the easiest” accreditation. As a result, the level of engineering education may be jeopardized.
It is a freedom of study programs to choose an accreditation agency. If study programs contact JABEE to seek for JABEE accreditation, JABEE’s advices are the following depending on the 2 different cases:

• (1) If an authoritative accreditation agency exists in a jurisdiction, accreditation conducted by such an agency should be considered as priority. Study programs should be encouraged to seek for accreditation by its country-based accreditation agency, who knows the nation’s needs better than any foreign accreditation agencies and who accredits study programs using its own accreditation criteria. If the study programs still prefer to be accredited by JABEE as an international-level and outcomes-based accreditation agency, JABEE will contact the country-based accreditation agency to ask whether they agree that JABEE will conduct program evaluation. If they agree, JABEE could evaluate the study programs only if they have been accredited by the country-based accreditation agency in the first place. The accreditation by JABEE has only an additional value. This policy applies for the Washington Accord signatories and provisional members as well as those, who are preparing joining the Accord.
• (2) If a country does not have an international-level engineering accreditation agency, JABEE is happy to assist the country to establish an agency and to join the Washington Accord rather than conducting a spot accreditation of a study program.

There is a good practice for the case (2):
Since 2013, under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) project, JABEE has been assisting Indonesia to establish the Indonesian Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (IABEE). Within the framework of JICA project, JABEE did accredit 4 study programs as pilot accreditations. IABEE was admitted to a provisional member of the Washington Accord in 2019 and expects to be a signatory within a few years. Some study programs in Indonesia contact JABEE to seek for JABEE accreditation, nevertheless JABEE explains that JABEE will not accredit study programs in Indonesia anymore and advises them to be accredited by IABEE. The following are the 4 study programs JABEE accredited for IABEE.

• Mechanical and Biosystem Engineering Department of Bogor Agricultural University in 2014
• Civil Engineering Department of Islamic University of Indonesia in 2015
• Metallurgical Engineering Department of Bandung Institute of Technology in 2016
• Chemical Engineering Department of University of Indonesia in 2016