ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Monday said that last week it had briefed a Senate committee about the poor performance of the Quality Enhancement Cells (QECs) of universities, not the overall working of the universities.

On the other hand, the chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Federal Education Senator Irfan Siddiqui said HEC officials had briefed the committee about the performance of the universities and did not separate the QECs from it.

He also sought a report from HEC over its “changing” stance, adding media reports were based on proceedings of the meeting.

“The Senate standing committee was briefed on the performance of QECs of the universities that were assessed during 2019-20, and not the over all performance of the universities,” the HEC said in a statement.

Committee chairman seeks report on commission’s change of stance

It said the measurement standard criteria for QECs and institutional performance were different. “The yearly progress of QECs is measured on six quantifiable standards where as the performance of universitiesis reviewed against 11 defined standards. The news regarding performance of the universities has been misinterpreted by some newspapers,” the statement said.

During a briefing, the Senate committee was on Friday informed by HEC officials that performance of 32 universities, including Quaid-i-Azam University, was unsatisfactory.

Even the committee members were shocked after being told that QAU and some other major universities were underperforming.

Later, the Senate Secretariat through a press release also said during the meeting the committee was informed that the performance of 32 major universities was unsatisfactory.

When contacted, Senator Siddiqui told Dawn that the committee was going to take up the matter in its next meeting and the HEC would be asked to explain the change in its stance.

The HEC said QECs were annually assessed by HEC’s Quality Assurance Agency for their performance against defined parameters.

“Every university provides yearly progress report against the given criteria and targets which are (i) conductingself-review of institutional performance evaluation, (ii) self-assessment of programmes,(iii) accreditation of programmes by the accreditation councils,(iv) conduct self review MS/MPhil and PhD programme review from HEC, self-review, NOCs of MS/MPhil and PhD programmes,(v) strengthening of QECs secretariat, membership of statutory bodies and international QA bodies, conducting of awareness seminars/workshops, and (vi) implementation of HEC’s quality assuranceguidelines and policies,” said the HEC statement.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2021