About Cognia
Cognia® (formerly AdvancED) is the world's largest not-for-profit, authoritative accrediting body for international schools, with a 130-year history of accrediting 40,000 schools, educational institutions and training schools in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide,with 50,000 teachers and 18 million students, making it the world's largest education accrediting and education service provider.
Why Cognia
4 Key Characteristices, 30 Standards
4 Key Characteristices, 30 Standards
For more than 125 years, schools have been inviting Cognia and the legacy agencies, NCA CASI, NWAC, and SACS CASI, into their classrooms. Why? Because Cognia go beyond evaluating school quality and provide trusted expertise and actionable ideas that move the needle on school quality. Cognia Performance Standards are at the heart of continuous improvement and accreditation. They define the characteristics of a good education institution and provide guidelines for efforts that will energetically and visibly grow learners, teachers, leaders, and organizations.
Global network of Cognia learning communities
Cognia has a strong global network of international school communities, regular (monthly and annual) training workshops to enhance communication between schools. Cognia online professional development platform supports your professional development efforts through a wide variety of learning labs and community spaces designed for teachers and leaders.
Systemic process
Research has shown that schools using a systemic process outperform comparable schools that do not implement systemic reforms. In a study of Michigan schools, schools leveraging AdvancED (now Cognia) accreditation were rated higher on school quality standards compared to similar schools. Further, when examining school performance rankings (i.e., Michigan’s Top-to-Bottom list), the schools’ mean rankings were higher than schools using a non-systemic approach in all categories except Focus schools, where the means were similar
Nirmeen Alireza
ASDAN China Cognia accreditation consultant service
ASDAN China has successfully accredited by Cognia® (formerly AdvancED) in 2023. ASDAN China has been highly evaluated by Cognia® in the 30 standards of the 4 dimensions - culture for learning, leadership for learning, engagement of learning and growth in learning.
Why ASEEDER？
Working with quality schools and educators around the world and help every learner to achieve
Cooperation process
Confirmation of cooperation:
a. Submit the ASEEDER Cognia Accreditation consultant service Application Form to ASEEDER (Click to download the template)
b. School profile Presentation
c. Sign the cooperation agreement
First round of Review phase:
a. Activate the system & First round of ASEEDER training session
b. Assist with on-campus visits and submit evaluation reports
c. Submit revised review materials based on feedback
Second round of Review phase:
Participation in Engagement Review
a. Second round of ASEEDER training session
b. Preparing for the second round of review and make personalized adjustments
c. Final review
Obtain certification report and feedback, successful certification
What is school accreditation?
Accreditation is a process of continuous school improvement through which an institution is evaluated and monitored for adherence to a set of standards in support of teaching and learning, along with organizational effectiveness. This serves two main purposes: quality assurance (a status) and quality improvement (a process). While assurance means that schools meet minimum standards, accreditation status and self-review tools are leveraged to ensure schools are improving outcomes (Groves, B., & George, M. S. (2022). Connecting the dots of accreditation : leadership, coherence, and continuous improvement. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ).
Participation in accreditation demonstrates a school's concern for the quality of teaching and learning, and its willingness to keep pace with high international teaching standards. In general, accreditation is an ongoing process in which schools must be reviewed every few years, and with each review, schools must be able to fully demonstrate the progress and improvements they have made over that period.
Accreditation signifies that the school's overall level of performance is among the international standards of excellence.
Why school accreditation?
enrollment
Recognition
transcripts
FAQ
To qualify for Cognia accreditation, a school must:
1. Hold a valid full-time private school license issued in mainland China (business license or school operating permit);
2. Ensure that the legal entity, teaching premises, and the organization issuing diplomas/transcripts are the same.
Training centers and non–full-time institutions are not eligible. Even if an institution offers programs such as Edexcel or A-Level, it cannot apply unless it holds the proper full-time school license.
Offering international programs is not mandatory, but the school must provide structured evidence of curriculum delivery, teaching effectiveness, and student assessment.
Schools newly launching international programs are not advised to apply immediately. It is better to wait until the program has run for 2–3 cohorts, allowing time to accumulate teaching records, student performance data, and evidence of continuous improvement.
Accreditation depends on the business license:
If all campuses share one business license, one unified accreditation with a single fee.
If each campus is a separate legal entity, each campus must apply and pay independently.
Cognia evaluates schools across four major domains:Learning Culture, Leadership, Learner Engagement, Continuou, Improvement
These domains include 30 standards, and schools must provide evidence for each (policies, records, assessment data, etc.).
The full standards and evidence lists are internal documents and are not publicly distributed. We recommend arranging an official consultation session for a detailed walkthrough and preparation guidance.