Quality assurance in various fields: HEC & universities agree to make more efforts

A three-day vice chancellors' committee meeting ended on Wednesday with a consensus that the Higher Education Commission and universities to make more concerted efforts to assure quality whether it is faculty appointment, student admissions, opening of new institutions and sub-campuses, curriculum development, offering new degree courses, granting affiliations, teaching and research or any other matter related to higher education.
In his address, Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, the commission Chairman, praised vice chancellors for their active participation and discussions on various challenges being faced by the higher education sector and deliberating possible solutions.
Shahnaz Wazir Ali, a former adviser to the prime minister and now the President of SZABIST, said for all matters related to higher education, leadership "has to come from the Higher Education Commission and there "should never be different standards for different universities".
A detailed session took place on the "tenure track system" for faculty appointment wherein Dr Raza Bhatti, the member of the commission's operations and planning, described in detail the purpose of introducing the system and the discrepancies arising from deviation from set criteria for appointment under the system. Issues of the system discussed included non-approval of statutes from respective governing bodies, non-submission of statutes and relevant record to the commission, appointments without advertisement, TRP committee without two foreign experts, lack of Departmental Tenure Review Committees, non-observance of annual, mid-term and final reviews (hard review), assumption of administrative posts by the system faculty, not awarding increments at the time of initial appointments, and deviation from contract period.