The institution begins the accreditation process through  submission of formal application to the ACTEA office  in Nairobi, which requires the institution to disclose  essential institutional data. In addition, the governing  board of the institution must also formally declare its  intention to pursue accreditation with ACTEA, and the  payment of the application fee by the institution will  confirm its intention. ACTEA awards provisional recognition once an  institution’s theological education programme(s) can  meet several core standards relating to quality of  admissions, quality of teaching staff, quality of  educational programme, and adequacy of library  resources. Assessment of these core standards is based  upon selected but essential aspects of the  comprehensive ACTEA Standards. Where full  compliance falls short, official assessment may accept  a reasonable trajectory of development (e.g. plans for  meeting total count of library resources specified by the  Standards). 

Normally, assessment of these core standards for  provisional recognition demands an in-person, on-site  visit from an official ACTEA Assessor(s), who usually  is based within the same region as the institution. The  institution will be responsible for the travel costs  associated with this visit. 

The duration of provisional recognition may extend to  three years, although ACTEA encourages institutions to  move towards full accreditation in less time than the  three year limit in order to reap the reward of accredited  status. While the status of Provisional Recognition does  merit for the institution recognition, which may be  advertised to stakeholders, and access to services  through ACTEA global partners, it does not constitute  voting membership in the General Assembly. 

During this phase of provisional recognition, the  institution will plan and work towards compliance of its  theological education programme(s) with all of the  ACTEA Standards contained in Part II of the Standards  document (‘Standards and Guide to Self-evaluation’).  Climactically, the institution carries out its institutional  self-evaluation (see Part III of this document) and submits to ACTEA a Self-evaluation Report (see Part  IV) based on the ‘Standards & Guide to Self evaluation’.