International Standard for Higher Education via Professional Boides

Recently I was asked about the desirability and feasibility of international standards for higher education. Experience from professional bodies in standardising professional skills shows this is feasable and desirable. This also already provides a level of standardisation between national educational systems

Some programs in higher education are accredited as being suitable for membership of professional bodies, providing a form of standardization between institutions nationally, and in some cases internationally. In the computing profession, a commonly used standard in the USA, and elsewhere, is the ACM/IEEE CS Computer Science Curricula. A new 2013 ACM/IEEE CS Computer Science Curricula is under development.

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) accredits computing degree courses at Australian universities as being suitable for membership and has its own ICT Professional Body of Knowledge. Each university's curriculum, facilities and staff are checked by ACS before accreditation.

There are some standards for computer professional skills agreed between national bodies, thus bringing some level of international standardization. One standard from the UK and also used in Australia is the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).