Quality, Standards & Credentialing

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Quality, Standards and Credentialing oversees all activities and tasks needed to maintain a desired level of excellence throughout the Academy. This occurs through a Quality Management Framework, Standards and Work Procedures, and a Learner Recognition System that uses standardized digital credentials in documenting and displaying learner achievement.

The Quality Management Framework reflects research, best practices and key findings from the review of the ISO Quality Management Standard 9001, peer-reviewed journal articles and broad research and policy directions drawn from United Nations agencies, global health provider standards and innovation, as well as, accreditation and regulation practice globally.  These standards, along with key performance indicators, set the expectations for the WHO Academy and provide a point of reference for quality planning, improvement, control and quality assurance in determining the benchmarks for success.

The Learner Recognition System offers a standardized, agile pathway for lifelong learning recognition that is learner-centric, competency-based, stackable and digitally portable.The WHO Academy will use a digital credentialing system to formally recognize learning outcomes achieved and competencies acquired. These will be embedded in the digital credential that learners acquire through successful completion of their coursework, and that will enable them to demonstrate their competencies to regulators, professional bodies, and employers on a global scale.

For its part, the Academy will ensure that its courses are backed by rigorous quality standards and that its credentialing system is interoperable with other agencies, regulators, employers, and organizations around the world. Academy micro-credentials can be used to advance, identify and deploy health workers based on their unique set of acquired competencies. 

To achieve these goals, the Academy has created a Quality and Standards Committee that is instituting standardized learner recognition through a system of digital credentialing.

Through market research, the WHO Academy realized that the gap in widely accepted learner recognition was holding health workers back in their careers. Many health professionals have skills and undertake learning in areas for which they receive no formal recognition. 

The aim of the Academy is to create high-impact accredited and tailored multilingual learning that meets the diverse needs of the health workforce, through globally recognized digital credentials from the WHO Academy.

A joint working group was established with UNESCO in July 2020 to apply the UNESCO World Reference Level (WRL) tool as a structure for the Academy’s credentialing system. Applying the WRL will enable the standardized leveling of the learning achievement level for each competency developed in an Academy course.