In general, accreditation of higher education institutions by local educational authorities are mainly based on input criteria such as physical resources, sufficiency of faculty, curriculum etc. and sometimes this process is called initial accreditation. On the other hand, respected international accreditation organizations consider output aspects such as the assurance of learning and continuous improvement processes in their reviews.
All universities in North Cyprus are fully recognized and accredited by the National Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and the Higher Education, Planning, Accreditation and Coordination Council (YODAK). YODAK is well placed and accepted by the higher education international community. YODAK is an affiliate of ENQA, full member of INQAAHE and CEENQA and founding member of AQAAIW. YODAK participates and contributes to working groups of ENQA on “Quality Assurance in Lifelong Learning” and “Quality Assurance and Excellence in Higher Education”, and also takes part in the working group on the “Review of External Quality Assurance Agencies“ established at the last General Assembly Meeting of AQAAIW in Cairo on 7 November 2012.
All North Cyprus universities are also accredited by Higher Education Board in Turkey (YOK), and our universities are not treated any different than the Universities in Turkey and their programs. Turkish students from Turkey are recruited to our Universities through the Central Examination held in Turkey. For instance, any Turkish student admitted without being placed by the Central Examination of YOK, cannot have its award (degree) recognized by YOK authorities.
As regards international accreditation, if you could look at the Federal Republic of Germany Official Web Page of “Information portal for the recognition of foreign qualifications (anabin)” http://anabin.kmk.org/no_cache/filter/institutionen.html, or at UK-NARIC Web Page https://www.naric.org.uk/naric/logged%20out.aspx, and the International Association of Universities Web Page http://www.iau-aiu.net/content/institutions#Turkey you will be able to see the list of the recognized Universities in North Cyprus and all 8 North Cypriot universities are among this list.
In addition, in order to enhance the quality of their teaching and learning and their research capacity, Universities in North Cyprus have been seeking individual accreditation from other credible accreditation organizations that operate internationally. Some of the programs in our Universities are accredited by ABET, ASIIN (giving EUR-ACE and EURO-INF Labels), TEDQUAL, MIAK (Architecture programs, from Turkey), MUDEK (Engineering programs, from Turkey). Currently, some programs are undergoing the review process of AACSB, FIBAA and AHPGS. These are all very respectable international accreditation bodies and you can get further information about their organizations from their respective