The Academy of the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan (ASCCA), which is shortly/informally referred to as the Azerbaijan Customs Academy (ACA), was established through a Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2012; started functioning in 2014; and successfully materialized its first-ever students graduation in the academic year 2017/2018. It is a special-purpose and accredited public higher education institution (HEI), operating under the State Customs Committee (SCC) of Azerbaijan. The institution's rector is appointed by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
As a public HEI accredited by the Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan, the institution carries out a number of higher education (BA and MA level) programs, to which the admissions are implemented by the State Examination Center of Azerbaijan. Currently, the institution implements the following academic degree programs:
-BA in Economics
-BA in Laws
-BA in Information Security
-BA in International Trade and Logistics
-MA in International Law
-MA in Customs Administration
-MA in Criminal Law
As the only national Customs training institute, it also implements additional education and training for the Customs Service Officers e.g. regular professional training and continuous/adult/lifelong learning programs for the Customs employees.
The ACA professional Customs training and retraining types include:
-Pre-service & in-service trainings
-On-the-job personnel (re-)trainings
-Executive/advanced professional development trainings;
-Internships;
-Additional higher education
-Improvement of other qualification levels.
-Crucially, the ACA also houses and represents two important international entities:
World Customs Organization Regional Training Center (RTC) in Baku: the ACA Rector is the RTC Director.
Regional Office of the International Network of Customs Universities (INCU) headquartered in Australia: the ACA leads the Baku Regional Office and is the only focal point for the INCU matters.
To sum it up, the following reflects the ACA's special differences from almost all higher education institutions in Azerbaijan, with all its several and interrelated functions, as summed up below:
1) An accredited public higher education institution functioning as a university
2) An adult learning provider / the only national Customs training institute, which also has a specific Lifelong Learning Department
3) A research entity
4) WCO RTC in Baku
5) INCU Regional Office
