Islamabad, JAN 25 /DNA/ – The Higher Education Commission (HEC) in collaboration with the British Council, Pakistan organized an orientation session on UK’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), a preliminary step towards development of a similar framework for Pakistan under the collaborative “Pak-UK Education Gateway” project of HEC and British Council.
The Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) is a national exercise, introduced by the government in UK. It assesses excellence in teaching at universities and colleges, and how each higher education provider ensures excellent outcomes for their students in terms of graduate-level employment or further study.
The session was chaired by the Executive Director, HEC and attended by senior management of British Council Pakistan, faculty members of universities across the country and Divisional Heads and officers of Academics, Human Resources Development and Planning & Development Divisions, Higher Education Commission.
Prof. Chris Husbands, Vice Chancellor, Sheffield Hallam and Chair, Teaching Excellence Framework UK oriented the participants on UK’s TEF through video link. A team of Coventry University, UK comprising Prof. Guy Daly, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Students and Mr. Stephen Fallows, Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor Strategy and Planning also shared their experience of TEF implementation.
Welcoming the UK and Pakistani participants, the Executive Director, Higher Education Commission expressed her gratification that the orientation will undeniably help in developing a model framework for bringing qualitative changes in teaching and learning facilities at the Higher Education Institutions of Pakistan. She also acknowledged that the initiative will build further on existing collaborations between the UK and Pakistan in the field of higher education.
Engr. Muhammad Raza Chohan, Adviser (Academics and Accreditation) HEC described HEC’s various initiatives for enhancing teaching quality standards in Pakistan’s higher education institutions. Dr. Nishat Riaz, Director Education, British Council Pakistan gave an overview of Pak-UK Education Gateway project and its ambitions.
The participating faculty members of Pakistani universities, who will lead the initiative further in collaboration with UK educational experts, shared the national perspective of teaching and related facilities at Pakistani universities with the UK speakers and recommended the development of a framework, which is suitable in Pakistan’s context.
In the end, Engr. Muhammad Raza Chohan, Adviser (Academics and Accreditation) HEC and Ms. Sarah Parvez, Head of Higher Education, British Council jointly moderated an open discussion with the participants on development of TEF and discussed on how to make the whole exercise more focused and meaningful.
In his closing remarks, Mr. Amir Ramzan, Country Head, British Council hoped that the initiative will go a long way in improving the quality of teaching and education in Pakistan. He thanked the participating faculty as well as British experts for taking part in the orientation session, and stressed on faculty members to come up with ideas and practical solutions for developing TEF that best suits the local higher education system.
Based on findings of the orientation session, HEC and British Council will develop terms of reference for selection of suitable organizations/institutes and Universities in the United Kingdom to work on the project. It is expected that both sides will complete the overall task within the project timelines.
