Institutional status and controlling basis
ICEQC is an independent, nonprofit and nongovernmental international education quality certification organisation established in Switzerland and registered under UID CHE-196.137.617, with its registered office in Geneva. It operates a voluntary third-party standards and certification system. Its authority derives from the published ICEQC institutional and contractual framework; ICEQC is not a governmental regulator, licensing authority, statutory accreditation body, degree-recognition authority or academic-equivalency authority.
The governance framework is constituted by the ICEQC Standards System Charter, the Governance and Document Control series, the General Rules for ICEQC Education Quality Certification Schemes and the object-specific certification schemes. Public summaries on this website do not replace those controlled instruments. The Standards Register identifies the current edition, status, responsible body, approval authority and authoritative language of each instrument.
Governance is directed to the reliability of education-quality information and the protection of persons who may reasonably rely on it. Institutional approval, standards development, evidence verification, technical review, certification decision, fee administration, surveillance, complaint handling and appeal determination remain distinguishable functions. Authority attaches to the institution and to a current written authorisation, not to a title, reputation, system access or informal participation.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 1
Purpose and authority
The ICEQC standards system exists to develop original, transparent and auditable education-quality requirements for voluntary third-party conformity assessment.
This Charter establishes the public principles, institutional authorities and document hierarchy governing that system.
ICEQC does not exercise governmental regulatory, licensing, accreditation, degree-recognition or academic-equivalency authority.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 2
Scope
This Charter applies to every ICEQC standard, certification scheme, applicability module, governance rule, procedure, policy, guidance document, form, register, consultation text, interpretation, amendment, correction and translation.
It also governs the relationship between standard-setting authority, conformity verification, certification decisions, appeals and public certification claims.
Where another ICEQC document is inconsistent with this Charter, the Charter prevails unless a later edition of the Charter expressly provides otherwise.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 3
Institutional nature and boundaries
ICEQC is a non-governmental organization established in Switzerland and operates a voluntary education-quality standards and certification system.
An ICEQC standard is a document published under ICEQC authority; an ICEQC certificate is a third-party statement limited to the holder, object, scope, edition and period shown in the public register.
Neither publication nor certification confers public-law status, authorization to operate, institutional or programme accreditation, recognition of qualifications, entitlement to public funding, immigration benefit or equivalence with a governmental decision.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 4
Principles of standardization
ICEQC shall conduct standards development in accordance with transparency, openness, impartiality, reasoned consensus, effectiveness, relevance and coherence.
Standards shall address an identified education-quality need, avoid unnecessary duplication, remain proportionate to the risk or outcome concerned and, wherever practicable, specify performance or outcome conditions rather than prescribe a single design or method.
Participation shall not be restricted by nationality, geography or organizational affiliation where the participant has a legitimate interest in the subject.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 5
Public interest and international relevance
ICEQC standards shall take account of learners, families, educators, education providers, public-interest organizations, researchers, purchasers, regulators and other users who may rely on certification information.
International relevance requires attention to different legal systems, languages, levels of resources, delivery models and stages of educational development.
A requirement shall not privilege a country, provider type, technology, commercial model or proprietary solution unless an objectively justified public-interest reason is stated in the published document.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 6
Standards architecture and precedence
The ICEQC governance series controls the standards system; certification rules control application, evaluation, decision and maintenance of certification; core requirements state common education-quality conditions; certification schemes define the applicable conformity-assessment model; and applicability modules add or select conditions for a defined sector, service or product.
Guidance and research may assist understanding but do not create certification requirements unless a published normative document expressly incorporates a specific provision.
A more specific document may supplement a higher-level rule but shall not silently disapply or contradict it.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 7
Governing Council
The ICEQC Governing Council is the final institutional approval authority for controlled public standards and governance documents.
Its approval confirms that the document falls within ICEQC's mandate, has completed the applicable due process, preserves impartiality and public-interest safeguards, and is authorized for publication.
Approval does not permit the Council to waive a published certification requirement for an individual applicant or to replace an independent certification or appeal decision.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 8
Standards Council and responsible technical bodies
The ICEQC Standards Council is responsible for the coherence, maintenance and public integrity of the standards system.
A document record may assign technical responsibility to a defined council, committee or other competent body.
The responsible body shall act within the scope stated in the document record, consider affected interests and preserve consistency with this Charter.
Technical responsibility does not by itself confer authority to grant, refuse, suspend, withdraw or reinstate an individual certification.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 10
Impartiality and separation of authority
Standard-setting, conformity verification, technical review, certification decision, fee administration and appeal determination are distinct functions.
A person shall not determine a certification or appeal matter in which that person has an unmanaged financial, employment, advisory, family or other interest.
The authority that determines an appeal shall not have participated in the original verification, technical review or decision.
Commercial considerations, payment status beyond published contractual conditions, or the prospect of future business shall not influence technical content or conformity conclusions.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 11
Transparency and public accountability
ICEQC shall maintain a public Standards Register identifying the current edition, status, language, publication date, effective date, responsible body and approval authority for every public controlled document.
Proposed standards and substantive revisions shall be announced and consulted on in accordance with ICEQC-GOV-008.
Superseded and withdrawn editions, corrections, transition notices and consultation outcomes shall remain identifiable so that a reader can reconstruct which requirements applied at a stated time.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 13
Continuity and review of the system
The governance system shall remain operable when membership, leadership, technology or organizational arrangements change.
Reserved authorities, document custody and public records attach to the institution and not to an individual office-holder.
This Charter shall be reviewed at least once every five years and earlier where legal change, material stakeholder concern, a failure of due process, a conflict between controlled documents or a significant change in the certification system indicates that review is necessary.
Review may result in confirmation, amendment, revision or withdrawal.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 14
Interpretation of the institutional mandate
ICEQC shall exercise standards-development and certification authority only within the education-quality purposes stated in its public constitutional and controlled documents.
The existence of technical expertise, contractual consent or market demand shall not be treated as authority to perform a function reserved by law to a government, regulator, accreditor, licensing body, qualification authority, court or another competent institution.
Where an ICEQC subject overlaps a regulated field, the applicable ICEQC document shall distinguish the education-quality matter it addresses from the legal or specialist determination it does not make, and shall identify any recognized external evidence on which a limited conclusion depends.
A public reader shall be able to determine from the standard, scheme, certificate and register record both the positive meaning of the ICEQC act and the matters expressly outside it.
Uncertainty about mandate shall be resolved by narrowing or clarifying the ICEQC claim until authority and public meaning are unambiguous; it shall not be resolved by promotional interpretation, contractual wording or a private assurance that enlarges the public effect of certification.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 15
Ownership and stewardship of the standards system
ICEQC is the scheme owner and institutional steward of every standard and certification scheme issued in its name, and retains responsibility for their coherence, maintenance, interpretation and controlled public identity.
A committee, expert, contractor, partner, donor, software provider or external contributor may support development but does not acquire power to issue an ICEQC standard, determine its status or authorize an ICEQC certification claim.
Intellectual contributions shall be accepted on terms that permit lawful publication, maintenance, translation, correction and withdrawal without allowing a contributor to prevent necessary public-interest action.
Stewardship includes preserving the historical record, protecting identifiers and marks, maintaining access to applicable requirements, and ensuring that a successor body or changed organizational structure can identify the authority under which each document was issued.
ICEQC shall not describe a document as jointly owned, jointly approved or externally endorsed unless a public instrument accurately establishes that relationship, states its limits and prevents confusion about which organization is responsible for the ICEQC certification decision.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 16
Public-interest duty
The standards system shall be governed for the reliability of education-quality information and the protection of persons who may reasonably rely on it, with particular attention to learners and other persons exposed to unequal information or power.
A decision about technical content, publication timing, access, transition or public identity shall consider foreseeable effects on safety, fairness, accessibility, privacy, educational validity and the ability to verify a claim.
The interests of applicants and certified clients are legitimate stakeholder interests but shall not be treated as identical to the public interest or allowed to override the integrity of a requirement.
Revenue, growth targets, reputational convenience, competitive pressure or the wish to avoid criticism shall not justify weakening a protection, concealing a limitation or delaying a necessary correction.
Where affected interests cannot all be accommodated, the published reasoning shall explain the material interests considered, the protection or outcome given priority and the proportionality of the resulting rule, without disclosing protected personal or confidential information.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 36
Compliance with applicable law
ICEQC standards shall be drafted and governed on the premise that applicable law continues to apply independently of voluntary certification.
A standard may establish a higher or more specific education-quality condition where lawful, but shall not instruct a person to breach a legal obligation or imply that conformity resolves every jurisdictional requirement.
Where legal rules materially differ, the document shall state the common requirement and provide a controlled method for recognizing jurisdiction-specific obligations without purporting to give universal legal advice.
Discovery of a credible conflict between an ICEQC provision and applicable law shall trigger prompt review, risk containment and, where necessary, correction, amendment, interpretation, transition or suspension of the affected provision.
Public wording shall distinguish a legal reference, an ICEQC requirement and evidence of legal compliance so that an ICEQC finding is not misrepresented as a judgment by a court or regulator.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 43
Public standards work programme
ICEQC shall maintain a public work programme identifying planned new standards, substantive revisions and systematic reviews sufficiently early for interested persons to anticipate participation.
For each active project, the programme shall identify the subject, intended document or family, responsible body, current development stage, expected consultation opportunity and a reasonable indication of timing, while making clear that schedules may change.
Discontinued, merged or materially re-scoped projects shall remain traceable with a short explanation so that earlier notices do not continue to imply an expected publication.
The programme shall distinguish normative standards work from research, guidance, certification casework and internal administrative improvement.
Absence of a project from the programme shall not be used to deny that a published emergency action occurred, but any permitted emergency departure shall be identified and reviewed under the expedited procedure rather than retrospectively presented as ordinary planned work.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 44
Governance record
Each standards project and material governance decision shall have a controlled record capable of showing the authority, applicable procedure, principal evidence, participation opportunity, comments and objections, conflict safeguards, recommendation, reviews, approval, final content identity and publication or other outcome.
The record shall be sufficiently complete for a competent person independent of the original activity to determine whether the published due process was followed, without requiring reconstruction from personal memory or informal correspondence.
Public and protected components may be separated, but their existence, relationship and retention status shall remain controlled.
A record shall distinguish contemporaneous evidence from a later explanation and shall not be rewritten to create an appearance that an omitted action occurred.
Retention shall reflect the continuing life of the document, historical certification reliance, legal obligations and the period in which a procedural challenge may reasonably arise.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 45
Transparency of meetings and decisions
Where a meeting materially contributes to technical consensus, approval or resolution of a substantial objection, its date, purpose, participating interest categories, authority and resulting decisions shall be recorded.
Transparency does not require public livestreaming or verbatim disclosure of all deliberation, and protected personal, security, legal or commercially confidential information may be withheld.
The public record shall nevertheless permit readers to understand what institutional body acted, what issue was decided and how that action relates to the published document.
Informal discussions, workshops and bilateral meetings may inform understanding but shall not be used to make an undisclosed decision or give selected interests an exclusive opportunity to change normative text.
A correction to a meeting or decision record shall preserve the original entry, identify the reason and shall not retroactively alter a vote, attendance or authority without due-process review.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 53
Monitoring the effectiveness of governance
ICEQC shall monitor whether the standards system operates consistently with transparency, openness, impartiality, consensus, relevance, coherence and public verifiability.
Monitoring shall consider participation patterns, unresolved objections, complaint and appeal themes, correction frequency, translation discrepancies, broken references, conflicting interpretations, transition outcomes and evidence that standards create unintended exclusion or cannot support consistent conformity decisions.
Counts alone shall not be treated as proof of quality; absence of complaints may indicate either effective governance or inaccessible routes.
Findings shall inform systematic review, competence development, procedural amendment and public explanation as appropriate.
Aggregate results and material improvement decisions shall be disclosed at a level that supports accountability without exposing protected case information or converting internal performance monitoring into a public certification claim about ICEQC itself.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 54
Independent review of the governance system
The Governing Council shall arrange periodic review of the governance system by persons who are sufficiently independent of routine standards-development and certification decisions to provide credible challenge.
Review shall consider whether public rules are complete, internally consistent, actually followed and suitable for the scale, geography, technology and risk of ICEQC activity.
The reviewers shall have access to representative public and protected records under appropriate confidentiality and shall be free to identify systemic weakness, even where no individual decision has been overturned.
The review outcome shall identify scope, independence safeguards, principal conclusions, material corrective commitments and the responsible authority for follow-up.
Publication may summarize sensitive findings, but shall not omit a material qualification necessary to understand whether the governance system remains fit for purpose.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 56
External recognition and equivalence claims
ICEQC shall not claim that its standards or certificates are recognized, equivalent, aligned, accredited or approved by another organization or authority unless the precise claim is supported by a current public act from a competent source and used within its stated scope.
Participation in consultation, citation of a source, shared terminology, membership, memorandum of understanding, attendance at an event or technical similarity does not by itself establish recognition or equivalence.
A comparative mapping may identify factual similarities and differences but shall state its author, method, edition basis, limitations and non-normative effect.
Expiry, withdrawal or limitation of an external status shall be reflected promptly in ICEQC public communication.
Nothing in this rule prevents accurate description of independent cooperation or lawful external evaluation, but the description shall preserve the ICEQC-only issuer and certification identity required by ICEQC-GOV-009.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 57
Business continuity of standards governance
ICEQC shall maintain continuity arrangements proportionate to events capable of interrupting governance, including loss of key office-holders, technology failure, cyber incident, disaster, legal restriction, financial distress, supplier failure or inability of a body to meet.
Continuity shall preserve document custody, public status information, decision authority, conflict safeguards, consultation records and the ability to issue urgent corrections without transferring normative power to an unauthorized person.
Temporary arrangements shall be documented, time-limited and reviewed, and shall not be used to make avoidable permanent policy changes while ordinary representation is unavailable.
If a public service is unavailable, ICEQC shall provide a credible status notice and alternative verification route as soon as practicable.
Restoration shall confirm the integrity of records and identify any governance or publication action taken during the disruption that affects public reliance.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 59
Institutional restructuring or cessation
A merger, renaming, transfer of assets, change of legal form, relocation, insolvency or cessation of ICEQC activity shall not silently transfer standards ownership, certification liability or decision authority.
Before a material restructuring takes effect, the competent governance authority shall determine custody of controlled documents and records, treatment of active standards and certificates, public-register continuity, claims and marks, outstanding complaints and appeals, personal data, contractual duties and the identity of any lawful successor.
A successor shall not represent itself as having issued historic ICEQC decisions unless the legal and controlled record supports that continuity, and shall not enlarge their scope.
If no suitable successor exists, ICEQC shall provide orderly withdrawal, archival verification and public notice to the extent lawfully and practically possible.
The public record shall distinguish continuation, transfer, suspension and termination so that institutional change is not mistaken for automatic ongoing certification validity.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 61
Constitutional precedence and subordinate authority
This Charter is the highest ICEQC controlled rule for the standards and certification system and shall govern the interpretation of subordinate governance rules, certification procedures, schemes, modules, policies and public identity instruments.
A subordinate document may allocate detail, establish additional safeguards or adapt application to a defined object, but shall not remove a Charter protection, enlarge institutional authority or create an exception by implication.
Where the Charter reserves a matter for another document, that document shall act within the reservation and remain subject to the Charter's purpose and boundaries.
A contract, committee resolution, platform setting, partnership term or individual decision shall not amend this hierarchy.
Any proposal to alter precedence shall be made visibly as a Charter amendment, assessed for consequential effects throughout the controlled-document system and published with transition arrangements that prevent different audiences from being governed unknowingly by inconsistent authority.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 70
Public access to governing documents
The current authoritative Charter, governance rules, certification requirements, scheme conditions, transition notices and public decision routes shall be available without requiring a person to become an applicant, provide unnecessary personal information or purchase an optional service.
Reasonable copyright and integrity conditions may govern reproduction, but shall not prevent reading, citation and verification of the requirements used for certification.
Where an indispensable incorporated document is subject to an external fee or access restriction, that dependency and its effect shall be disclosed and a lawful accessible solution shall be sought.
Technical unavailability shall be acknowledged with an alternative route and shall not justify applying a hidden copy.
Superseded and withdrawn documents may be placed in an archive rather than the current register view, but their status, applicable period and relationship to later editions shall remain discoverable.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 71
Annual public governance statement
ICEQC shall publish a proportionate periodic statement on the operation of its standards governance, ordinarily covering the preceding year.
The statement shall identify new and revised normative documents, consultations, systematic reviews, corrections and interpretations, material procedural complaints or appeals in aggregate, governance improvement actions, and significant changes to responsible bodies or cooperation arrangements.
It shall distinguish activity counts from claims of effectiveness and shall explain material limitations in the available information.
Confidential case information, personal data and legally protected material shall not be disclosed, but protection shall not remove the existence of a systemic issue or corrective commitment necessary for public understanding.
Publication of the statement does not certify ICEQC or replace independent review; it provides an accountable public record against which later governance development can be understood.
ICEQC-GOV-001 · Clause 72
Corrective publication and reliance protection
Where ICEQC publishes materially incorrect governance information, it shall correct the source and take proportionate steps to reach persons reasonably likely to have relied on it.
The correction shall identify what was wrong, the accurate information, the affected period and whether any standard, certification action, deadline or public claim is affected.
A corrected webpage shall not erase the fact of a material earlier error where historical reliance matters.
ICEQC shall distinguish an administrative correction from a normative amendment and shall not describe a change of obligation as if it merely repaired presentation.
If a person acted reasonably on authoritative ICEQC information before correction, the competent authority shall consider fair transitional or remedial treatment consistent with learner protection and certification integrity; reliance shall not create authority for a result that ICEQC was legally incapable of granting.