The Tertiary Articulation Committee (TAC) was initially established by the UCJ as the Credit Transfer Committee in 1997.  At that time, the mandate of the Committee was “to work on the establishment of an Accumulation and Transfer of Credit System for tertiary education.”  In 1999, the Committee was renamed TAC, a name that better depicts the scope of the work of the Committee.

TAC is a broad-based Committee that brings together all the major stakeholders in tertiary education.  The Committee’s work over the period has culminated in the establishment of the Tertiary Qualifications Framework (TQF) in 2002, and the Guidelines for the Accreditation of Short Courses in 2005. 

The TQF seeks to provide a comprehensive, coherent, consistent, yet flexible framework for diversity of qualifications in the tertiary education and training system in Jamaica.  The Guidelines for the Accreditation of Short Courses recognize the existence of teaching/learning taking place at the tertiary level, outside of the formal education system, and seek to set up the framework within which such courses and programmes of study may be given formal recognition and acceptance within the tertiary education system.  Both the TQF and the Guidelines for the Accreditation of Short Courses are critical to the development of a system for the transfer of credits across institutions and programmes of study, an important part of the process for the creation of an integrated and coherent tertiary education system.