NWAC Board is Valid, legal & acceptable In India

A lot of people including students, teachers and school administrators have sought to know more about the American System of School Education and particularly about Northwest Accreditation Board  or NWAC and AdvancED. As an educator who has spent 21 years in the States (or in America, as we fondly call it), let me express my point of view on this topic. The American School Education system is hinged on two basic principles: accreditation and program.

Accreditation is nothing, but a form of what we call affiliation in India or in some other Asian countries. Infact, accreditation as a concept was introduced to regulate the quality of school education in USA. As a matter of fact, there are only given accreditation agencies in US who are recognized by the US governments, either Federal or State. The most noticeable among these are the six US Regional Accrediting agencies. So it is like saying that, in India there are only a given finite number of bodies whose stamp is valid for school affiliation, namely CBSE at the Central Government level and State Boards at the State level. If you are a recognized school from any of these Boards, then your students will eventually have a qualification that is considered valid, legal and acceptable for further education. Similarly, if you have a school in US, accredited by any of these six US Regional Accrediting Agencies, then you have a stamp of accreditation that is valid, legal and acceptable.  Northwest Accreditation Commission or NWAC board is one of the six US Regional Accrediting Agencies.

The second principle is hinged on the Program that you are running in your school. The American High School Diploma Program is the most commonly found program and a program of choice for schools and students alike.

To summarize and merge the two principles above, an American High School Diploma Program from a school accredited by any of the six US Regional Accrediting Agencies, is a valid, legal and acceptable option for colleges and universities, while evaluating the candidature of students for higher education.

Now let us bring this picture and co-relate it with the Indian school education system. To do that we must first understand what is the thumb rule for any qualification being acceptable in India or for that matter anywhere else globally. The rule is “If a qualification is valid, legal and acceptable in the country of its origin, then it is valid, legal and acceptable in all other countries.” India is no exception as we are a part of the global fraternity. So to extrapolate the concept, if one is asking whether NWAC board is valid acceptable school qualification in India, it is like asking if CBSE is a valid school qualification in USA. Thousand of CBSE School students seek and get admission is US universities every year. So there is no base in questioning the validity of NWAC or any of the six Regional Accrediting Agencies, whether in India or elsewhere.

I hope that my above explanation shall qualify well to serve the queries of one and all who question the validity of NWAC or any other recognized agencies.