Govt inks accreditation deal with Kazakh agency

The Ministry of Education has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Kazakhstan’s Independent Agency for Accreditation and Rating (IAAR), establishing the latter as an official accrediting body for medical and other health professions education here.

The partnership is intended to bolster Barbados’ reputation as an international education destination, particularly in the fields of medicine and health sciences.

At a brief ceremony held on Wednesday at the ministry’s offices, Sandra Husbands, minister of state for education, praised the new agreement, suggesting it would elevate the level of students pursuing their education in Barbados.

Husbands said: “By virtue of signing this MOU today, we pledge to collaborate closely with one another in order to achieve our shared objectives, which is to pursue excellence in education. For my ministry, accreditation in medicine and other health professions is of utmost importance, and represents a promising future.”

She emphasised the economic significance of the agreement: “Being able to build our capacity to offer education of every kind to people from every part of the world is going to be an important part of our economic thrust. Having your agency on board helps us to accomplish this, because we can give the assurance to students, to people across the world, to people who are employing students who graduate from [our] universities, the assurance that [our education] is of the highest quality.”