Accreditation Results 2020

1. ABEST21 Accreditation Result

ABEST21 Accreditation Result of the Master of Business Administration program at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Communications, Naresuan University is as follows:
“The School’s educational and research activities have generally met ABEST21 Management Accreditation Standards and the quality maintenance and improvement of education and research in the aforementioned program are promising and good.”
Accreditation commences April 1, 2020 for a five-year period.

2. The Peer Review Team

3. The Peer Review Schedule

4. Comprehensive Review

Faculty of Business, Economics, and Communications of Naresuan University has pursued for re-accreditation of ABEST21 in Year 2019. The scope of accreditation focuses on its MBA program. Overall, the school showed strong motivation to improve the education quality and try to improve all aspects that will support the education and research activities. The school has great strengths which include good infrastructure, well-qualified faculty members, and dedicated teaching and supporting staffs. As a result, all the self-check/self-evaluation of the school were complied with the ABEST21 criteria.
In order to help the school to perform better and improve its education quality through the realization of its resources and missions however, this is a concern to be noted. Here the school’s approach was not strategically defined and appeared to be unsystematic. This is because 1) SWOT analysis was not thoroughly defined due to lack of realization of future threats; 2) some strategies for education improvement have no action plan; 3) some action plans were not aligned with the strategies, 4) issues to be improved were not mentioned in the action plans, and 5) no major improvement during the previous accreditation was mentioned. For this reason, the school may pursue quality improvement for its education with random directions. Furthermore, it is difficult to anticipate how the school is going to resolve the mentioned “issues to be improved” because there is no action plan for such issues.
In addition, the revised report was not carefully prepared, some of sentences are hard to follow. The school also lacked an internationalization of program. It is important to design the internationalization of the MBA program with the current resources.

5. Good Practice in the Program Management Education

(1) Title of Good Practice in Management Education

“Faculty Competency Management through IDP”

(2) Reason for selecting the title stated above

Mostly teaching staffs in Thailand are on their own in terms of individual competency.
In Naresuan University however, Individual improvement plan (IDP) has been implemented. Every faculty member in this university is required to submit IDP to the university. This enables and encourages faculty members to make improvement for themselves and therefore contribute to the school education.

6. Matters to be noted

• SWOT analysis was not thoroughly defined; here only a few “Threats” were mentioned. Hence the school may not be able to plan to overcome the potential threats in the future.
• The process to develop strategies seemed to be not systematic. Once SWOT analysis was not thoroughly defined, it is unlikely to develop a well- defined strategy.
• In the school report, some action plans were not aligned with strategies, keeping in mind that “Strategies” are directions or courses of actions to achieve a specific goal while “action plans” are a series of activities needed to implement the strategies. In the school report, some action plans were developed independently from the strategies. Moreover, many strategies have no action plan. Hence it is hard to believe that the school will be able to execute the strategies more effectively.
• Here the school should develop strategies to maximize its strengths as well as to gain from opportunities. In turn, the strategies should minimize its weakness while avoid threat. The school however, has not developed strategies in such manners. In this case, for example, the school has not addressed a strategy to utilize expertise of their faculty members to promote school uniqueness.
• Action plans were not aligned with strategies. Many action plans were developed independently from the strategies. As a result, the school may eventually pursue quality improvement with random directions.
• Several strategies have no action plan and thus it is unclear how the school can execute the strategies more effectively. The strategies with no action plan are as follows:

• Misunderstanding concerning the concept of learning outcomes should be removed for the effective alignment with the mission statements.
• SWOT analysis should be done more rigorously to explain the weaknesses and threats that could be addressed effectively in the action plan.
• Networking with alumni and industry leaders are the key measure to be taken for improving teaching, research and overall education quality.
• The School should address career and placement issues, because these concerns were expressed by both students and alumni.
• Alumni are ready to play more active roles when the School invites them. They should be more actively involved.
• Uniqueness of the School is the parent Mega University (UiTM), large alumni base and subsidized programs.
• UiTM’s unique and distinctive features can be more effectively utilized for improving the MBA program.

Several issues to be improved were not in the action plans. It is unclear how the school is going to solve the issues, when, and for how long. Those included the followings.

• Issues to be improved for Criterion 2-1;
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 2-3
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 3-2;
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 3-3;
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 3-4;
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 13-3;
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 15-4;
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 19-5;
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 19-6;
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 20-2;
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 20-5; and
• Issues to be improved for Criterion 25-1.

• The school should proof read the report before submit to ABEST21, some of statements and sentences are hard to follow. There are many mis-spelling and grammatical errors, especially the use of parentheses.

• It would be better if the school can frequently conduct meeting with stakeholders (leading in industry) to improve the current syllabus.
• The school should plan on how to improve the internationalization of the current of MBA program.

• The school can utilize the global class room to leverage the internationalization of the MBA program.
• Important matter that need to be noted is how the School is going to expand its student diversity. So, the students not only come from surrounding areas but also other part of Thailand or other countries.