Following a visit from the accreditation team of The British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes (BALEAP) in October 2023, CELE’s core Preliminary Year courses Oral Communication Skills A and Reading and Writing in Academic Contexts have received full BALEAP Accreditation. UNNC is now one of only a handful of institutions outside of the UK to have had English for Academic Purposes (EAP) modules accredited through the BALEAP Accreditation Scheme.

The BALEAP Accreditation Scheme (BAS) is a specialist quality assurance and enhancement scheme set up by BALEAP for providers of EAP worldwide. The broad aim of BAS is to establish and sustain the standards required of specialist EAP provision in whatever context it exists, in order to enhance best practice across diverse education contexts and academic communities. BAS has been accrediting courses since 1991, based on the standards set out in a code of practice first established in 1989. These standards have been reviewed regularly in consultation with institutions who have gone through the accreditation process. BAS collaborates with providers to ensure the quality and enhancement of EAP provision by reviewing course documentation, and visiting in person or online to observe course delivery.

The BAS visitation team reviewed course documentation and travelled to the UNNC campus in October 2023 to determine whether the EAP provisions were contextualised, constructively aligned and collaborative. In their final report, the BAS team commented:

Robert Smith, Head of the Centre for English Language Education and Director of the Preliminary Year, said:

The accreditation for these modules confirms CELE’s teaching and learning activities and assessment are informed by the context students are in and should to progress to. The courses are aligned to learning outcomes and underpinned by clearly articulated principles and theory.