The increasing demand for quality private higher education by government, students and society entailsrnthat PHEls now face similar pressure that the production industries and other business sectors have beenrnfacing for decades. While quality can mean different things to different people, in the context of higherrneducation it particularly refers to a judgment about the level of goal achievement and the value and worth ofrnthat achievement. It is also a judgment about the degree to which activities or outputs have desirablerncharacteristics, according to some norm or against particular specified criteria or objectives. The mainrnissues in the quality debate about higher education in many countries are the maintenance andrnimprovement of levels of teaching, learning, research and scholarship; improvement in the quality andrnadaptability of graduates; how to define and measure quality; management approaches likely to improvernoutcomes from higher education institutions; the use of benchmarking and performance indicators; and howrnto convince stakeholders that institutions and systems are doing a competent job in ensuring qualityrnoutputs. Based on this, wide differences are observed among countries in their approach to qualityrnassurance. One typical approach has been the accreditation of institutions or professional programs.rnAccreditation refers to a process of external review which enables higher education programs or institutionsrnto be recognized or certified as meeting appropriate standards. Compared with the past, the new approachrnto quality assurance and accreditation is largely concerned about improvement and renewal as contrastedrnto emphasis on input requirements, academic standards, and accountability concerns.rnThis paper particularly tries to describe and report on existing guidelines and criteria for quality assurancernprocedures and the accreditation system used by the Ethiopian Ministry of Education (MoE) in thernassessment and review of PHEls primarily engaged in business fields. As a base for comparison the studyrndraws lessons from international experiences, review of relevant literature, and views and responsesrnobtained from local private providers of higher education.rnThe findings of the study indicate that quality assurance and accreditation efforts of the Ministry tend tornpredominantly stress on accountability over concern for improvement and renewal. In this respect it hasrnbeen suggested that quality is about a change in culture, which involves a slow process of evolution. Therndominant delegated accountability approach to quality that emphasizes procedures and list of standards isrnalways likely to lead to degree of skepticism about quality that would be counter productive in therndevelopment of a quality culture with in the private institutions.