International accreditation is a mark of quality assurance held by schools around the world that exemplify high quality standards in international education. The accreditation process is an organisation-wide evaluation process of an educational institution and its programmes by an external body to benchmark its quality with international standards and practices. If standards are met, accredited status is granted.

Amala has been jointly accredited by the Council of International Schools (CIS) and New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) for its Global Secondary Diploma (GSD) programme. The Diploma qualification itself has not been accredited, but rather the broader institution and GSD programme have been.

Amala began the accreditation process over three years ago, starting in December 2021, when Amala became a member of CIS, which enabled us to pursue accreditation. NEASC joined the process, and in May 2022, evaluators from CIS and NEASC conducted a week-long preparatory evaluation, examining Amala’s practices, including our purpose and direction, premises, facilitation and learning, wellbeing, staffing and governance against the standards in the CIS accreditation framework. In August 2022, candidate status for accreditation was granted by CIS and NEASC. Amala then started a rigorous 15 month self-study process, with the team taking actions to meet the standards for full accreditation. In November and December 2023, the teams welcomed evaluators from both agencies to our sites in Jordan and Kenya for the final stage of the accreditation cycle.

The accreditation is critical to developing wider recognition of Amala’s work and will open up more opportunities for graduates, including access to higher education. Accreditation will also help Amala to seek the support to enable its long-term goal of enabling millions of refugee youth to access transformative education.

More details of CIS accreditation can be found on the news section of our website and in this FAQ document produced by CIS.