International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

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 Volume 9, Issue 3 (March 2022), Pages: 123-132

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 Original Research Paper

 Title: Appropriateness of the international accreditation frameworks of engineering education to the academic engineering programs in Saudi Arabia: A comparative study

 Author(s): Mouloud Aoudia *

 Affiliation(s):

 Department of Industrial Engineering, Northern Border University, Arar, Saudi Arabia

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 * Corresponding Author. 

  Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9455-1297

 Digital Object Identifier: 

 https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2022.03.014

 Abstract:

This paper focuses on the globalization of engineering education which has become a major preoccupation of engineering departments everywhere. There is a lack of literature on the global recognition requirements of Saudi engineering education. Most of the papers published in the field of accreditation of Saudi engineering education focused on reporting the individual experiences of some engineering programs or on identifying the challenges facing these programs when seeking national or international accreditation. This paper examines and explores the main milestones in the path towards the global recognition of engineering education in Saudi Arabia. The only way such recognition can be achieved, however, is through membership in a handful of accreditation frameworks such as the Washington Accord (WA) and the European Accredited Engineer (EUR-ACE). The purpose of this paper is threefold: 1) to take stock of the accreditation status of engineering program in Saudi Arabia, 2) to compare the requirements, rules, and procedures of WA and EUR-ACE to determine which organization best serves the Saudi engineering programs’ desire to achieve international recognition, and finally 3) make some recommendations on actions the national accreditation agencies could take to become members of WA. Even though this paper focuses on engineering education in Saudi Arabia, it applies equally to other countries looking to meet the highest quality standards in engineering education and seeking to ensure the international mobility of their graduates. 

 © 2022 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords: Engineering education, Academic accreditation, Globalization, Engineering profession

 Article History: Received 18 September 2021, Received in revised form 3 January 2022, Accepted 6 January 2022

 Acknowledgment 

The author gratefully acknowledges the approval and the support of this research study by the grant no. ENG-2016-1-6-F-5750 from the Deanship of Scientific Research at Northern Border University, Arar, Saudi Arabia.

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

 Aoudia M (2022). Appropriateness of the international accreditation frameworks of engineering education to the academic engineering programs in Saudi Arabia: A comparative study. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 9(3): 123-132

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