Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) has launched a new quality assurance framework for domestic higher education institutions aligned to its Vision 2025 objectives.  The new framework has been developed under the British Council’s PAK-UK Education Gateway programme to make the quality assurance processes and systems more outcome and results oriented. 

The new framework incorporates international best practices for institutional quality standards and will be based on a combination of internal self-assessments and external reviews by Accreditation Councils and the HEC’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). These assessments will be based on 16 institutional quality standards in areas such as academic quality and curricula; research, innovation and entrepreneurship; academia-industry and external partnerships and others. The global best practices have been contextualised in order to promote local solutions to specific challenges of the Pakistani higher education sector and help navigate through regional intricacies.

As part of this framework, colour coding will be used to categorise institutions based on their performance to help determine funding and policy decisions. The four categories will be Green (most effective), Blue (progressive), Yellow (average), and Grey (unclassified).

Whilst this framework applies to locally chartered private and public universities in Pakistan, a new quality assurance framework for foreign universities to operate in Pakistan is currently under development by the HEC.

British Council Comments

The new quality assurance framework underscores Pakistan government’s commitment for continuous improvement and pursuit of excellence in higher education.  This is a stepping stone towards setting up transparency, accountability and enhancement of  quality across the sector.

The UK HE sector has contributed towards creation of this framework through QAA UK’s collaboration with QAA Pakistan.  Having a well-established quality assurance system of an international standard will help to support UK HEIs to find appropriate partners and develop sustainable partnerships in the longer term.

For more information, please refer to:

https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/news/news/Pages/HEQ.aspx

https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/news/Documents/HEC-Vision-2025.pdf

https://www.app.com.pk/national/hec-launches-innovative-quality-assurance-framework/

https://www.pc.gov.pk/uploads/vision2025/Pakistan-Vision-2025.pdf