Daily Times

LAHORE – The Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan has constituted several Panels of Experts to review the higher education institutions across the country, with an aim to ensure adherence of universities’ policies and practices to the defined quality assurance criteria and guidelines for good governance.

Complying with the special directive of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, HEC has so far reviewed quality assurance and governance mechanism of 100 universities, both in public and private sector, while 50 more universities will be reviewed in the coming week. It is hoped that current phase of this whole review will be completed by the end of March 2016.

Session was chaired by the HEC Chairman Prof Dr Mukhtar Ahmad and attended by a number of academic experts and quality practitioners from across the country, many of whom joined the session through video conferencing.

The initiative will not only improve quality of teaching and research in the universities, but will also sensitise the higher learning institutions to contribute to the socio-economic priorities of the country. Prof Dr Mukhtar has issued special instructions to expedite the process, being carried out under the auspices of HEC’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).

It is pertinent to mention here that before starting this review process, HEC convened a brainstorming session in November 2015 with the expert academicians to finalise the parameters for review of the universities.