Institutionalizing Governance in Saudi Higher Education: Focus on Strategic Excellence and NCAAA Accreditation Resilience

This opinion paper promotes establishing governance and compliance offices within Saudi universities, which could be an enabling factor that can achieve institutional accreditation resilience and operational excellence and promote grievance handling where needed. As Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 drives transformational changes across most public institutions, higher education entities are also required to align their governance practices to the standards of the National Center for Academic Accreditation and Evaluation (NCAAA). Based on more than 10 years of work in quality assurance and accreditation, the author makes a strong argument for having Offices of Governance and Compliance serve these institutions like an umbrella to help with institutional policy, accountability, and strategic alignment. Not only do these offices strengthen transparency and decision-making, but they also play a direct role in NCAAA accreditation preparedness – built on a foundation of structured internal quality assurance systems, risk management, and integrity frameworks. However, obstacles like resistance to change and limited resources remain but can be addressed through focused training and digitization. It is critical that we start to view governance as a strategy, not a tick-the-box process. Such offices are scalable models for resilient, future-fit universities ready to deliver against the demands of 21st- century education in alignment with national and global quality standards.