Day: May 25, 2018

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The Quality Assurance Agency of Higher Education Commission organized a 02 days activity for the Directors of QECs on 18- 19^th April, 2018 at Margala Hotel, Islamabad. This activity was aimed to strengthen the Quality Assurance System in Pakistani Degree awarding institutions through Internal Quality Assurance Mechanism and External Quality Assurance Mechanism.

Dr Arshia Samin Naqvi, Director QEC represented Ziauddin University in the meeting.

First day of the meeting comprised of presentations of each university’s internal quality assurance practices by the QEC heads. Presentation of Ziauddin University was rated best and applauded because all the programs of ZU are accredited by the respective accrediting bodies. Second day of the activity included training and discussion on the revised Quality Assessment criteria of QECs developed by HEC, which was shared with all Degree Awarding Institutions to bridge the gap between Internal & External Quality Assurance System.

 Important points on which deliberations were done during the two days are as follows:

• Strategic planning of each Degree Awarding Institution is of utmost importance and will carry high scores.
• In cases where some requirement is not available in the Act of a university, amendment to the Act is not mandatory. Approval from the Patron (Governor) is enough to fulfill the HEC requirement.
• Regarding faculty appointment: HEC advised to keep record of notifications for adoption of HEC/ accrediting body appointment criteria and hard copies of advertisements.
• For three mandatory evaluations i.e faculty and teacher evaluation by students and course evaluation by the respective faculty member, a password to the university evaluations link has to be shared with the HEC.
• For MPhil/ MS/ PhD programs:

1. Act/ Charter of the university must approve of the program.
2. NOC of accrediting body should be available.
3. Curriculum of the program should be in line with the HEC requirements.
4. Admission requirements must fulfill HEC criteria. In case an applicant falls short of some requirement deficiency courses are appreciated.
5. Duration of the program and semester wise breakup of workload/ credit hours should be available.
6. PhD faculty should be registered with HEC.
7. Maximum time allowed for MPhil and PhD is inclusive of all the extensions given to a student. This should be strictly taken care of.
8. PhD thesis review policy i.e by two foreign experts should be strictly followed. Purpose of this is to develop linkages with foreign universities by initiating joint research projects.
9. One published paper will be accepted. Acceptance of a paper by a research journal does not fulfill the HEC requirement.
10. Notifications of approval of program by statutory bodies are mandatory.
11. Policies e.g freezing of semester policy should be available in hard copy.
12. Anti plagiarism policy as a written document should be available and notified to all the stakeholders.
13. For admission to MPhil/ MS programs 50% score in GAT and for PhD 70% score in National and 60% in international GRE is mandatory.
14. Comprehensive exam after completion of 18 credit hour course work, is mandatory and passing in both Oral and written exam is required. Only 2 attempts are allowed in comprehensive exam.
15. Emails may be used to send the thesis for review but personal email addresses shouldn’t be used. All correspondence should be done on official email addresses.
16. Different nomenclatures shouldn’t be used in the same class of MS/MPhil (with or without thesis.) In case of MS without thesis, the student has to do a 6 credit hour research work to be able to apply for PhD.
17. Each university must work on standardized course codes for their PG programs.
18. HEC advised to highlight the research area of its PhD supervisors in the prospectus or on the website. Also mention the number of vacant seats with each supervisor. This will attract students having interest in the given area.
19. Thesis writing workshops should be conducted at proposal writing stage.
20. HEC also advises to improve facilities for PhD students e.g provide exclusive workstations in the library, PhD lounges for research students, employ peer learning/ mentoring methods.

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Quality Enhancement Cell of Ziauddin University”][vc_column_text]

Quality Enhancement Cell organized a symposium on “Managing Quality of Assessment in HEIs”  on 15th May, 2018. The purpose of this Symposium was to discuss the practices of assessment and the challenges faced by universities in process of assessment set. The Symposium also aimed at providing inputs to HEC for future to bring uniformity in processes in light of problems faced by students and universities.

The Symposium had three major objectives:

1. To share the best practices in the field of Assessment.
2. To identify issues warranting further discussion based on the experiences of different universities.
3. To provide inputs for the drafting of a recommendation for consideration by HEC.

The Symposium was attended by representatives from 12 Universities i.e. Baqai Medical University, IBA, SZABIST, IoBM, ILMA, FAST, DHA Suffa, Sindh Univeristy Jamshoro, ISRA University, DOW University of Health Sciences, Indus University, Liaquat College of Medicine & Dentistry. The symposium was linked on HEC national circuit through ZU video link.

Proceedings of the Symposium started with Tilawat e Quran. Dr. Arshia Samin Naqvi, Director QEC Ziauddin University introduced the participants and upraised about the importance of the topic. Welcome address was given by Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui who focused on the importance of QECs. He also highlighted some of the emerging issues including the fact that the methodologies of teaching is changing and suggested that in future these types of discussions  should be conducted on the said topic.

In setting the scope of deliberations for the Symposium, Mr Nadeem Zafar, Controller Examination, Ziauddin University gave presentation on Managing Quality of Assessment in ZU. He explained about the tools used in assessment, working of MCQ bank and the processes involved in assuring quality of exams e.g use of Table of Specification and post hoc analysis.

 The three hours long activity was divided into following:

1. Presentations on Managing Quality of Assessment in various universities.
2. Discussion on Issues that emerge during the process of assessment

• Drafting Recommendations for HEC.

Presentations contributed by participants were followed by exchange of experiences that enriched the discussions and raised issues on: the centralized grading system, assessment of analytical thinking, Credit transfer policy, standardization of transcript, course coding and PhD thesis review by external examiners.

Finally it was concluded and recommended that all accrediting bodies need to collaborate with HEC and come to the same page especially regarding the grading system and semester system.

Ms. Zareen Hussain Deputy Director QEC gave the vote of thanks and mentioned that QEC of Ziauddin University is honored by the presence of QECs of so many HEIs and thanked Prof. Dr Qasim Raza Siddiqui for supporting and guiding QEC in all its endeavors.

At the end of the symposium certificates were presented to the participants by the Vice Chancellor of Ziauddin University.

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