National Accreditation Agency for Higher Education (BAN-PT) officially announced the Decree No. 2863/SK/BAN-PT/Akred/S/XII/2016 granting English Education Department (EED) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) ‘A’ accreditation on 2 December 2016. The accreditation was achieved after six-year establishment.

In an interview on Friday (23/12), Head of EED of UMY, Sri Sudrsi, M. In.T. stated that the department was established in 2010, and gained ‘C’ accreditation in 2013. “We, EED lecturers and staffs, thought that the accreditation should be improved since it would disappoint the graduates,” Sri told.

The department had prepared for re-accreditation 2016 since 2015. The department created a task force who was in charge in preparing re-accreditation documents. “Once a week or two weeks, the task force had a meeting to discuss what to be documented because accreditation is documenting EED parties’ work,” she added.

Sri mentioned that her parties attempted to enhance the department quality as BAN-PT guidelines such as fostering learning and teaching quality as well as administration system. Afterwards, the parties sent the documents to BAN-PT and the department was visited on 1-2 September 2016.

In spite of obtaining ‘A’ accreditation, Sri asserted that the department parties are always improving the academic systems. “Achieving ‘A’ accreditation means that we have greater responsibility. ‘A’ is more than an accreditation so that it should be implemented in all academic activities at the EED of UMY,” Sri contended.

As the department head, Sri will always try to evaluate shortages of academic systems of the department. “We will look at plans of the department such as selecting prospective students. Getting ‘A’ means that the actions should be in ‘A’ level, particularly in enhancing the quality of research, services, and human resources.