Standards Development

Scope

This Technical Specification defines the rules applicable for the audit and certification of a Management Systems for Educational Organization (EOMS) complying with the requirements given in ISO 21001 (or other sets of specified EOMS requirements). It also provides the necessary information and confidence to customers about the way certification of their suppliers has been granted.

Certification of EOMS is a third-party conformity assessment activity (as described in ISO/IEC 17000: 2004, 5.5), and bodies performing this activity are third-party conformity assessment bodies.

NOTE 1 In this Technical Specification, the terms “product” and “service” are used separately (in contrast with the definition of “product” given in ISO/IEC 17000) and could be referred as “educational product” or “educational service”.

NOTE 2 This Technical Specification can be used as a criteria document for the accreditation or peer assessment of certification bodies which seek to be recognized as being competent to certify that an EOMS complies with ISO 21001. It is also intended to be used as a criteria document by regulatory authorities and industry consortia which engage in direct recognition of certification bodies to certify that an EOMS complies with ISO 21001. Some of its requirements could also be useful to other parties involved in the conformity assessment of such certification bodies, and in the conformity assessment of bodies that undertake to certify the compliance of EOMS with criteria additional to, or other than, those in ISO 21001.

NOTE 3 Certification of an EOMS according to ISO 21001 is a management system certification, not a product certification.

NOTE 4 ISO 21001 is a standalone management system standard, not a sector application of ISO 9001.

Other EOMS users can use the concepts and requirements of this Technical Specification provided that the requirements are adapted as necessary. 

Purpose

ISO 21001 – Educational Organizations – Management Systems for Educational Organizations – Requirements with guidance for use, was published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on May 1, 2018 and is the first ISO management system standard specifically developed for the education sector.

In its first year of existence, several educational organizations around the world implemented management systems based on it and seek certification. Most of these certifications were unnacredited, but in any case, this lead either/both certification bodies and accreditation bodies to have to develop internal rules to provide their accreditation and certification services on ISO 21001, which varied significantly across the world, due to the lack of ISO or IAF guidelines for this standard.

As it was concluded during the workshop “Feedback on ISO 21001” which was held in Felgueiras - Portugal, on September 24, 2019 and was organized to hear what users around the world had to say about their experiences with the standard at different levels – implementation, certification, accreditation and policy making – and to promote peer discussions among them, it is clear that the market needs and welcomes higher level guidelines – in the form of an ISO technical specification - in order to harmonize accreditation and certification practices across the world, level the play field and increase transparency and trust in the whole infrastructure around ISO 21001. 

Responding to this need, the VET21001 Project, funded by the European Commission, developed a proprietary standard entitled “Rules for an accredited certification scheme for ISO 21001 and EQAVET implementations” ©VET21001, which content was used as the base for the development of the ISO TS 21030 draft being proposed.