The Independent Institute of Education

The Independent Institute of Education

Type	Corporation
Industry	Education
Founded	2005[1]
Headquarters	54 Wierda Valley Road, Sandton, South Africa[2]
Area served	South Africa
Key people	Dr Felicity Coughlan (Director) Peter Kriel (General Manager)
Parent	ADvTECH Group Limited
Website	www.iie.ac.za

The Independent Institute of Education (IIE) is the largest and most accredited private higher education institution in South Africa.^[3] The IIE is a wholly owned subsidiary of investment holding company ADvTECH Group Limited. The IIE confers a range of tertiary qualifications, through various faculties, via a number of academic institutions in South Africa, including Vega, Varsity College, and The Design School Southern Africa.

History

The Independent Institute of Education was founded in 2004 as the academic leadership and governance body within the ADvTECH Group. It is responsible for overseeing all of the Group's academic campuses, and developing, assessing, certifying, and overseeing the delivery of curricula at its campuses.^[4]

Towards the end of 2005, Dr Felicity Coughlan moved from her positions as the Director of Strategic Planning and the Deputy Registrar at Wits University to join the IIE as its Director. Dr Coughlan is a former member of the Higher Education Quality Committee Board (HEQC) and current member and former chair of the HEQC Accreditation Committee, which is responsible for the accreditation of all higher education programmes at public and private institutions in South Africa.^[5]

In 2015, The IIE launched IIEMarque, an electronic verification process that integrates with its students' qualification certificates. In doing so, the IIE aimed to change the way graduates communicate their credentials to prospective employers and other academic institutions. Through The use of a QR code, linked to a custom URL, students are able to customize a profile through which they can share details about their registration and accreditation status, course credit values, and results. The personalised record spaces link with students' social media profiles, such as LinkedIn.^[6]

In June 2015, ADvTECH reported that The IIE had 31,000 tertiary students, 25,000 of whom are full-time, enrolled across 20 campuses in South Africa.^[7]

Divisions and Structure

The IIE oversees a number of academic institutions in South Africa, including:

The IIE confers a broad range of qualifications, covering a variety of NQF levels, organized across its various faculties. The Institute also operates a number of workshops and short courses, and offers distance education for some of its qualifications.

Tuition for other institutions such as Unisa, UFS, and IMM has also been available on some IIE campuses.^[8]

The IIE's structures include the Central Academic Team which is responsible for ensuring the quality of all qualifications and programmes offered by ADvTECH's IIE tertiary brands and their accreditation by the appropriate regulatory body. The Central Academic Team also plays a vital role in ensuring that all programme curricula remain relevant to market demand.

The Integrated Tertiary Systems Unit ensures that all systems and applications used to service students work in an aligned manner. The Unit ensures that synergies are leveraged and effort is not duplicated across our different brands. The team has been responsible for the implementation of The IIE's Learning management system, which has provided the platform for further work in offering distance mode learning.

The academic team works alongside The Unit, and is responsible for the content contained in the LMS.^[9]

ADvTECH’s academic leadership and governance system incorporates the AAC and Senate. The AAC, which includes external leaders in education and business, advises the ADvTECH Board, Senate, and IIE on academic matters.

The Senate is the ultimate academic decision making structure and sets academic policies for the Group. It is chaired by the Director of the IIE, while the Registrar, Heads of Faculty and Heads of Programme are ex officio members along with all other IIE academic staff. Elected representatives of the lecturing body as well as elected student representatives also serve on Senate while representatives from the ADvTECH management team attend as observers. The Senate is responsible, either directly or through its committees, for the structure and curriculum of all programmes, teaching and learning, libraries, research, and student conduct.^[3]

Publications

The IIE publishes The Independent Journal of Teaching and Learning,^[10] an annual peer-reviewed journal. The journal appears on The Department of Higher Education and Training's approved list of South African accredited journals, and is the only publication of its kind published by a private education provider that is accredited by the DHET.

The members of the peer review and editorial panels, as well as the authors, are academics with a wide range of specialisations, predominantly in the fields of general education, or the educational aspects of their disciplines. Most are external to the institution.

The journal focuses on making a difference to educators at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. It publishes original contributions of interest to researchers and practitioners in the field of education, including research-based empirical, reflective, or synoptic articles that would be of interest to the educational practitioner, review articles that critically examine research carried out in a specific field, discussion or advocacy papers, and book reviews that comprise a clear and concise evaluation of recently published books.^[10]

Accreditation

The IIE is registered with the Department of Higher Education and Training as a private higher education provider, under the Higher Education Act, 1997.^[8] The IIE is also accredited by the British Accreditation Council.^[3]

Associations and Endorsements

Through the IIE's World of Work graduate placement programme, The Institute has partnerships with and endorsements from a number of associations, including the Marketing Association of South Africa (MASA), Project Management South Africa (PMSA), the Chartered Institute of Business Management (CIBM), the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (FEDHASA), the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) and the Public Relations Institute of South Africa (PRISA).^[11]

References