Accreditation of architectural programs in Saudi Arabian universities

Abstract AR

-Achieving and maintaining accreditation from the National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB) is the top priority of architectural department's administrators in U.S.

universities, in their quest to ensure high quality of their academic programs.

Knowing fully well that in this day and age of global competition, their efforts are highly essential to ensure dominance for their graduates over the competition from non accredited programs the world over.

At this critical time, it is urgent and crucial for us to establish an accreditation process for architecture programs in Saudi Arabia in order to enhance the quality of our graduates and enable them to compete for job opportunities with their peers from other parts of the world.

It is the aim of this paper to discuss a framework of a proposed accreditation process for architectural programs in Saudi Arabian universities.

In the first part, the paper presents a detailed description of the NAAB's accreditation process.

The second part illustrates a proposed framework built on guidelines developed from the NAAB's process.

In the initial phase, this framework will enable the establishment of an accreditation process that aids in the improvement of architectural programs on the local level.

At later stages, these programs will be able to compete on the regional, Arab, Islamic, and international levels.