ISLAMABAD, Nov 15 (APP/DNA)::As the world turns to be a global village, keeping aloof of international developments in different arena of life, especially in education sector leaves nations backward and under developed, missing several opportunities in research and inventions.
Since it is common dilemma of developing nations to excel in education and research sectors due to lack of political will or paucity of funds, such nations including Pakistan direly need to transform this sector for compete globally.
Experts believe that a multifaceted approach like reforming education system, industry academia linkages, faculty development, accreditation and quality assurance, updating curricula, adopting modern management practices and critical thinking can be some essential steps to promote quality education.
They also stress partnership between universities and industries to provide students practical training and exposure to latest researches, train faculty members in modern teaching methodologies and management practices and establish robust accreditation processes.
“We need to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation through business incubators and startup support, use Pakistan’s case studies to teach management principles and offer executive education programs for working professionals,” opined an expert, Professor Tahir.
“Mandating internships and apprenticeships for management students, involving students in real-world consulting projects, organizing business plan competitions and entrepreneurship and engaging them with experienced managers and entrepreneurs, can also be beneficial,” he stressed.
Prof. Tahir also suggested establishing industry advisory boards to guide curriculum development and invite industry experts to share their experiences. “Joint research projects between academia and industry and offering customized training programs for industries should also be made mandatory to improve quality of education.”
Since renowned universities of the world deem degrees of numerous of our educational institutes as incompatible to their standards, a bulk of our students have to put in extra efforts to compete their fellows at these universities.
Although, our Higher Education Commission (HEC) has been actively working to improve quality of education yet the challenges of compatible education still exit. No doubt that the HEC has initiated quality review of universities through panel of experts to ensure implementation of required criteria and good governance for improving quality of teaching and research but still it needs to do a lot to achieve set targets.
“We have launched the revamped Quality Assurance Framework, ‘Pakistan Precepts, Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (PSG-2023)’ in line with HEC’s Vision 2025,” informed Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, Chairman HEC.
“The Revamped QA Framework is a testament to providing quality higher education and it will foster collaboration, innovation and continuous improvement of education quality, creating a strong foundation for our students’ success,” he explained.
The new framework, he said, has been developed under the British Council’s PAK-UK Education Gateway program to make quality assurance processes and systems more result oriented. “It 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).”
He said, with this Pakistan has taken a significant step in its pursuit of academic excellence with the official launch of Revamped Quality Assurance (QA) Framework for Higher Education in collaboration with British Council Pakistan.
“Crafted in collaboration with international experts, the framework aligns Pakistan with global best practices to meet our quality education needs,” he mentioned. “The Framework introduces a comprehensive review mechanism based on 16 Institutional Quality Standards to classify institutions into categorization based performance.”
Dr Mukhtar said, major categories in this framework are Green (most effective), Blue (progressive), Yellow (average) and Grey (unclassified) – determining their funding and customized policy interventions.
He also revealed that Institutional Quality Standards also cover themes like Academic Quality and Curricula, Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Academia-Industry and External Linkage, Technology Infrastructure and Enhancement, Corporate Governance, Audit & Finance, Community Service & Engagement, and Graduate Quality and Employability.
“Institutions will now undergo external accreditation reviews by Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and Accreditation Councils besides internal self-assessment processes,” the Chairman said. “This multi-faceted approach ensures a holistic evaluation of institutional quality.”
No matter that the HEC has also launched Higher Education Development to improve teaching, learning, and research environment, educationists have urged it to promote collaborations and partnership with foreign universities to bring in best practices and expertise.
“The HEC’s ultimate goal should be to develop a sustainable, dynamic and internationally competitive higher education sector that contributes significantly to country’s economic growth,” these experts remarked. “By implementing these initiatives, the HEC can produce high-quality graduates who can compete in the global market and contribute to Pakistan’s socio-economic development.”
It is worth mentioning that mushroom growth of private sector universities in recent past has badly affected our educational standard as except a few, the students graduating from these universities massively lack knowledge and expertise to compete internationally and secure jobs in global market.
This tendency is also growing at public sector universities where the education standard had deteriorated in recent decades.
Therefore, for survival in international educational and research arena as well as job market, we must have to revisit our education policies, standards as well as curricula and pave way for producing well- educated workforce for our overall progress.
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