The National Commission for University Evaluation and Accreditation (CONEAU) is a decentralized agency at the Argentina’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. Its role and functions are established in section 46 of the Higher Education Act No. 24521 of 1995 . It is the only government agency for university evaluation and accreditation and it started operating in 1996.
Its mission is to ensure and enhance the quality of university degrees and institutions in the Argentine university system through the evaluation and accreditation of the quality of the university programs and degrees offered.
Evaluation as policy and the foundation of CONEAU
The quality assesment of university education is a key issue within the educational reforms that began all over the world in the mid-80’s. Several older university evaluation agencies existed before in the United States and in England. However, today, the difference is that the evaluation of universities policies is not only applied in developed countries like France, but also in developing countries like in most of the Latin American ones.
This new agenda of university education was the result of different political, social and economic factors that promoted a review of the relationship among governments, universities and society. Evaluation is presented as the most appropriate instrument to regulate universities and improve the quality of the education provided by these institutions.
The Higher Education Act No. 24521, enacted in 1995, established a regulatory framework in Argentina that modified the traditional bureaucratic control exercised by the government on universities and introduced quality evaluation and assurance as a new element of the official university policy.
Following international trends, during the last decade in almost all Latin American countries, public or private university evaluation agencies have been established with the general objective of ensuring and improving the quality of the university education. In Argentina, legal regulations determine how both government and private agencies should work. CONEAU, as a government agency, takes part in the authorization of the private agencies.
Since 1996 CONEAU has put into operation the activities and functions established by its statute. Since then, it has been responsible for evaluating institutional projects. Since 1997, it has evaluated annual reports from universities with interim authorization, conducted external evaluations of institutions and granted accreditation to graduate programs. Since 1999, it has also reviewed applications for final recognition of private universities and for recognition of private accreditation agencies, and has put into operation the accreditation of state regulated undergraduate programs.
Background
The Secretariat of University Policies, created at the beginning of 1993 in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, established two programs at the time of the enactment of the Higher Education Act No. 24521. Since its inception, CONEAU was in charge of the execution both these programs.
In 1993, the Ministry signed sixteen agreements with public universities, two with school associations and one with a private university to plan and implement institutional evaluation processes. These agreements included the provision of consultancy services to conduct self-evaluations, and the provision of assistance to set up and coordinate external evaluation committees. In 1995, and as part of this program, the evaluations of three national universities were conducted: Universidad Nacional del Sur, Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral and Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. CONEAU took over the responsibility for implementing the rest of the agreements relating to external institutional evaluations.
By late 1994, the Ministry also established a Graduate Program Accreditation Commission (CAP). In 1995, this Commission called for participation in a voluntary accreditation process for Master and Doctorate Programs. More than 300 graduate study programs offered by public and private universities submitted their applications. CAP decided on their accreditation and issued a positive opinion for approximately two thirds of the applications, and classified the accredited programs in three different categories according to their quality. The Ministry of Education transferred the accreditation program to CONEAU and CAP was dismantled. |
CONEAU 
