Innovative member services
Flexibility and open-mindedness have been keys to recent success. Under Bell, COBIS have, perhaps, been responsible for the biggest leap in official recognition of an international education by national bodies since the campaigns to acknowledge the matriculation status of the IB. The agreement with the Japanese Ministry of Education to recognise qualifications of students attending a COBIS accredited school in order to enter Japanese national universities got the ball rolling in January 2026 and a similar agreement followed in Thailand. Bell and his team are working on others: expect news from Saudi Arabia and India at some point in the near future.
Collaborative agreements with US-based accrediting bodies such as NEASC and WASC negotiated on Bell’s watch, have not only proved popular with American colleagues, but give COBIS members the chance to enhance applications for college credit by US-bound students. British independent schools can also use their ISI inspection credentials to fast-track COBIS and NEASC/WASC, accreditation, bringing significant benefits to the growing number of their students who wish to go to the USA for their higher education.
A little gripe
So, what else does Bell have in his sights? There is something that he would like to address soon:
“We are good friends with the Department for Education (DfE) in the UK. However, despite the quality of our accreditation services, which we have voluntarily put under the microscope of the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency, COBIS accredited schools still cannot offer the Early Career Teacher Induction Programme”
Outside of the UK, this programme is the exclusive purview of schools which have been successfully visited under the British Schools Overseas (BSO) Inspection programme. This obviously rankles a little. However, I would not bet against Bell and his team getting an amendment over the line in the near future!