Educational review: HEC to review governance, quality of varsities

ISLAMABAD:

Several panels of experts have been constituted by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to review higher education institutions across the country.

The aim of the endeavour is to bring university policies and practices into adherence with the defined quality assurance and good governance guidelines.

Complying with the special directive of the prime minister, HEC has so far reviewed quality assurance and governance mechanism of 100 universities, both in public and private sector. More than 50 universities will be reviewed in the coming week, the HEC said.

The review is expected to be completed by the end of March.

The initiative is expected to improve quality of teaching and research in universities, and also sensitise higher learning institutions across the country.

Before starting the review process, the HEC convened a brainstorming session in November 2015 with expert academicians to finalise the parameters for review of the universities.

The review will be carried out by HEC’s quality assurance agency.

The session, held at the Commission Secretariat, was chaired by the HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmad, and attended by a number of academic experts and quality practitioners, many of whom joined the session via video-conference.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2016.