HEC establishes 5 National Accreditation Councils to improve quality education: Survey

ISLAMABAD: Higher Education Commission (HEC) with an aim to improve quality education has established five National Accreditation Councils in the areas of Agriculture, Business, Computing, Teacher and Technology Education for the programmes offered by the universities.

According to the Economic Survey 2019-20 on Thursday, The HEC has also coordinated and established linkages with nine existing professional councils.

It aims to enhance quality education through strong coordination and collaboration amongst universities and councils, and the focus is to improve the education system through proper assessment and evaluation processes with the cooperation of concerned councils.

At present, 1,800 programmes are accredited by the Accreditation Councils, and 200 more programmes are to be accredited in the next financial year 2020-21.

Under the Quality Enhancement Cell project, the HEC ensures that all existing and new universities will have a Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) to implement the standards being set for curricula, faculty, examination, governance, and digital resources.

Currently, there are 196 out of 211 universities that have established QECs.

The survey further told that Institutional Performance Evaluation Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) of HEC has been involved in both internal and external reviews of HEIs, since its establishment.

Nevertheless, a major step is undertaken by developing standards for Institutional Performance Evaluation (IPE).

Initially, four standards are developed for the evaluation of selected Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), which are gradually enhanced up to eleven standards.

This quality assurance initiative is introduced by QAA as part of its manifesto to safeguard the public interest by encouraging the introduction and implementation of good practices in public and private HEIs for continuous quality improvement in the higher education sector of Pakistan.

Under the Human Resource Development programme, HEC is investing a substantial amount to bridge the financing gap of obtaining the highest qualifications through the development and recurring projects/programmes of scholarships.

The survey further showed that under the Overseas Scholarships (OS) programme of HEC a total number of 716 scholars proceeded abroad for their PhD studies during 2019-20, whereas 487 scholars provisionally awarded under OS-Phase-III.

In addition, 501 scholars are awarded for six month PhD research fellowship abroad under the International Research Support Initiative Programme (IRSIP) during the said period.

A total number of 1,975 indigenous scholarships are awarded for Undergraduate, Postgraduate and PhD studies under various schemes during 2019-20, while, a total number of 2,853 need-based scholarships are awarded during 2019-20, under different need-based programmes.

It includes HEC need-based scholarships, USAID, and OGDCL Need-based scholarship programmes.

Ehsaas Undergraduate Scholarships initiative, launched by the Prime Minister, is the largest ever needs-based undergraduate scholarship programme in the history of Pakistan.

Under this programme, every year, 50,000 students from low-income families are being awarded scholarships for four to five-year undergraduate degree programmes.

Over four years, 200,000 undergraduate scholarships will be awarded on need and merit basis; 50 percent of awardees will be girls, while two percent of awardees will be disabled, the survey added.

It is a four-year programme that commenced in November 2019 for the academic year 2019-20.