BSU in conformity with international standards

By Jennelyn S. Tabancura

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- A total of 80 core and support processes of Benguet State University here are now in conformity with ISO 9001:2015. BSU core and support processes refer to the processes involved in the provision of tertiary education such as admission, enrollment, mentoring and graduation. 

This marks another milestone in BSU’s journey on the provision of tertiary education guided by its quality policy that goes, “BSU is continuously committed to improve its Quality Management System, satisfy requirements of relevant, interested parties, provide quality education and innovative research aligned with sustainable development and client satisfaction.”

ISO 9001: 2015 is the international standard specifying what a quality management system (QMS) is. The standard is used by organizations to show consistency in providing products and services that meet customer and regulatory requirements. It is the most popular standard in the ISO 9000 series and the only standard in the series to which organizations can be certified.

After being certified, TÜV Rheinland, the company contracted to facilitate BSU’s ISO certification will be visiting the University once a year to monitor and make sure that ISO 9001:2015 is ‘becoming a culture’.

“This will actually help our initiatives towards not only quality education but also (in) capacitating our faculty. One of our major initiatives is internationalization and therefore we’d like to develop our faculty members and faculty researchers who are able to present papers abroad to represent our university not only during paper presentation but we want to develop a brand of what being a BSU faculty means,” said BSU President, Dr. Feliciano G. Calora Jr.

BSU began efforts for certification as early as 2010 when Dr. Calora was then the director of the Planning and Development Office.In 2017 and 2018, the University strived for certification undergoing three certification audits in a year’s time. Recently, the Government Quality Management Committee included ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System (QMS) certification among the requirements for the grant of the Performance Based Bonus (PBB).

Commenting on this, Jay-Mie G. Catibayan, an ISO auditor from Quality Plus said the least reason that BSU is going through ISO is to be certified and get the PBB. 

“The first reason is to improve…to become a learning organization—from your mistakes and the mistake of others that when something goes wrong, we do something about it, we don’t do the blame game, we do root cause analysis…ISO makes us mature individuals,” she added.