ISO 21001 Certification

ISO 21001 Certification(Educational Organization Management System) – pioneer worlds future with ISO 21001

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed ISO 21001 standards that provide a framework for implementing the Educational Organization Management System (EOMS) for those institutions that offer educational products and services.
The main aim of ISO 21001 Certification is to meet the expectations of students as well as parents. This standard is based on ISO 9001 for quality management systems, but it specifically provides guidelines for educational institutions and works towards the delivery of an improved educational process that caters to the demands of the learners. This standard is applicable to all the institutions that provide learning in any form through a defined curriculum.



ISO 21001 Certification Principles:

  1. Customer focus – aiming to improve for the betterment of the interested parties and customer, this will help one sustain customer, increase customer base, makes sure to communicate their needs and expectation by monitoring throughout the organization
  2. Leadership – to achieve quality objectives leaders need to establish unity of purpose which is by aligning its strategy, policies, procedure and resource this will lead to better coordination of the organization’s processes one needs to establish a culture of trust and integrity, provide people with the required resource, training, authority to act with accountability
  3. Engagement of people – for efficiency involve people of all levels, this can be done by communicating with the employees their needs in the organization, sharing knowledge, and experience, recognizing people’s contribution, learning, and improvement.
  4. Process approach – when activities are understood and then executed then the efficiency of the delivered output will increase, by understanding organizations’ capabilities and determining resource constraints prior to action.
  5. Improvement- improvement is important for an organization to maintain the current level of performance and to even keep on developing, this can be done by giving proper training and letting them understand that how does a work happens with that track, review and audit planning, implementation, recognize and acknowledgment, which will result into anticipation of internal and external risks and opportunity, improved process performance.
  6. Evidence-based decision making – learn from mistakes, it is simply that decisions should be driven from evaluation of data, this will help one take better efficient solutions adding more, intuitions should never be neglected.
  7. Relationship management – manage relations with relevant interested parties such as providers, one can achieve by keeping a well-managed supply chain that provides a stable flow of products and services, determining interested party’s relationship that needs to manage,


PDCA Cycle

 Plan – to think that what do we need to achieve in our organization

✔ Do – to execute a planned action which will help us achieve the required objective

 Check – monitor against the standards) (policies, objectives, requirements)

 Action – finally implementing what has been rechecked.

ISO 21001 Benefits

ISO 21001 standard enlists certain practices in educational institutions that are effective and efficient. This standard can be applied to all those institutions that provide education, training, or any other form of learning. An institution, regardless of its size can go for ISO 21001 Certification and prove its commitment to quality.

Following are the major benefits of ISO 21001 certification:

  1. Proper alignment of vision and goals with educational work.
  2. Accessible and equitable education for all.
  3. Customization of the management system according to the institution’s requirements.
  4. Constant performance evaluation and improvements in practices to demonstrate efficiency and effectiveness.
  5. Boosts the reputation of educational institutions by displaying their credibility.

6. Continual improvement to stay updated with the changing trends.


ISO 21001 Requirements

The High-level Structure of ISO 21001 consists of 10 clauses that revolve around the principle of Plan-Do-Check-Act. The Annex- SL consists of 10 sections, out of which the first 3 are introductory in nature while the rest seven are auditable and give the requirements for the implementation of ISO 21001 EOMS.

Section 4- Context of the organization- This section deals with the scope of EOMS in your organization and understanding the needs of the interested parties.

Section 5- Leadership: It deals with the leadership and commitment (including the requirements for special needs) necessary to implement the EOMS. It is designed for the learner’s benefit and helps in assigning roles and responsibilities for better implementation.

Section 6- Planning: It involves planning the objectives for your organization as well as planning the preventive or mitigation strategies for any risks.

Section 7- Support: This includes identifying and arranging various resources for the implementation of EOMS, such as human resources, facilities, etc. It also deals with the need to create, update, and control the documented information.

Section 8- Operation: It involves determining and communicating the requirements for educational products and services as well as establishing controls and processes for the implementation of EOMS.

Section 9- Performance evaluation: It involves monitoring and measurement of the progress of EOMS in terms of learner’s satisfaction. The organization is needed to analyze and evaluate the information and conduct an internal audits as well as management reviews.

Section 10- Continual improvement: It deals with the actions to be taken in order to close the gaps so that there is a continual improvement of EOMS. in addition to that, it also requires the organization to identify the opportunities and work towards them.


ISO 21001 Process


1. Gap Analysis

    -Understand the prerequisites of ISO standards by analyzing each clause thoroughly.

    -Analyze your system for any shortcomings.

    -You may take help from any ISO consultant to get you through this stage.

2. Implementation

    -Prepare the required documents, records, and policies

    -Perform internal audits and management review to understand gaps and practical realties

    -Perform corrective actions to confirm conformities

3. Certification

    -Fill the application form provided by the certification body

    -Invite the auditors from the certification body for audit and certification

    -Get your management system ISO certified.


Stage One (documentation review) –At this stage, the auditors from the certification body verifies that your documentation meets the requirements of ISO 21001.

Stage Two (main audit) – In this stage, the realities of your processes are matched with your statements in the documentation for their compliance to the requirements of ISO 21001 standard.

the certification process goes further. Click here to view the next steps to the ISO certification process


Why should one get a 21001 (EOMS) Educational organizational management system?

As the name suggests it’s a management system that looks out in the educational organizational/institutional department which helps the employees to understand the standards so that they can work accordingly. Around the world, educational quality varies and if one wants to be innocuous and does not want to get deceived, an ISO 21001 certificate will give a mandate assurance by practicing:

  • Learned-centric approach
  • Good resources and the trained facility is provided
  • Curriculum and material is relevant to learners
  • Family and societal support is offered
  • Save and conducive learning environment is offered

Getting ISO 21001 certificate, one gets a vivid ideology about how to conduct themselves, since its inception the educational system has been developed a lot, we cannot evade the education system as it is about building our world’s future.

The standards are suitable across the field of educational providers, public, or private educational sectors.