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The Accreditation Council duly accredited the University of Applied Sciences of Special Needs Education HfH (Interkantonale Hochschule für Heilpädagogik HfH) at its meeting on 24.03.2017. HfH is the first university of teacher education to have undergone and duly passed the procedure for institutional accreditation in Switzerland pursuant to HEdA.

The Federal Act on Funding and Coordination of the Swiss Higher Education Sector (HEdA) dated 30 September 2011 stipulates that institutional accreditation is a prerequisite for receiving the right to use the designation pursuant to Art. 29 HEdA and for being recognised as eligible for contributions pursuant to Art. 45 HEdA. This applies to all public and private universities as well as other institutions in the higher education sector. The accreditation decisions for all HEdA procedures are made by the Swiss Accreditation Council.

The AAQ conducted the procedure. Overall, the expert group considered the quality assurance system of the HfH to be well-developed. They drew up conditions in areas where the quality standards were not yet fully satisfied. The AAQ accepted the accreditation proposal of the expert group in its application to the Accreditation Council.

The report on the procedure is published on: www.aaq.ch/en/procedural-reports

Each of the reports and assessments made by the expert group within the scope of the institutional accreditation represents a snapshot: they provide an overview of the quality assurance system and an appraisal of standards with due consideration for the type of higher education institution and its specific profile. The reports do not therefore create a basis for a qualitative or quantitative comparison between the quality assurance systems of universities.