Monday | 7 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
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Monday | 7 October 2024 | Epaper

IQAC for quality assurance in higher education

Published : Tuesday, 26 April, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 1094
Rajib Chakraborty
As part of the commitments of the government and upgrading the quality of the tertiary level education in Bangladesh and also improving the environment for doing research, the current government has been instrumental in establishing universities, forming of accreditation council, recruiting qualified manpower, and empowering University Grant Commission in the case of monitoring and supervising higher educational institutions.

To produce qualified graduates for the labour market and face the upcoming challenges, a nation needs to develop its human resources who will be technologically updated, innovative, well informed, knowledgeable, capable of facing upcoming challenges, and ultimately will be considered for the assets of the country.

For ensuring this, quality education and improving the standard of level of education in higher educational institutions is a must. To continue these, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) through an initiative named Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) with the help of the World Bank started funding different projects to enhance the skills of faculties, departments, officials, and other stakeholders of the higher educational institutions and also has been working to set up the Institutional Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) in university-level to ensure quality in higher education.

To run smoothly any framework needs a manual or guidelines and for that, the IQAC Operation Manual (IQACOM) regarding organogram of the committee and functional activities was prepared and published by the Quality Assurance Unit (QAU) of the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (UGC). The IQAC manual consists of sets of principles and guidelines that target faculties, learners, office administrators, and other stakeholders to bring all together and add them to the evaluation system to ensure the contribution of all parties. It aims to generate a set of policy instruments that includes the quality assurance process practiced by the higher educational institutions in the country so that there will be a formation of an internal quality assurance system (QA) within the university level that can help to function IQAC smoothly.

University Grants Commission, the apex authority of all public and private universities in Bangladesh, feels that such an institutional QA cell within the university will be able to bring necessary positive changes in university study programs, ensure quality teaching-learning, improve the research environment and prepare individual policies for developing up to date support service at an acceptable level.

According to the Bangladesh Accreditation Council (BAC), the highest statutory autonomous body for promoting and ensuring quality assurance in higher education, the existence of a well-functioning Institutional Quality assurance Cell (IQAC) within the university for monitoring and evaluation, the HEI must have an inclusive system of monitoring, assessment, and review of the policy to find out strength, weakness, threats, and well-functioning Institutional Quality assurance Cell (IQAC) for assessing continual improvement.

Benefits of IQAC:
o    Ensure a well-functioning QA system and support the university to achieve its vision
o    Work as a central quality assurance cell helps formulate, develop new procedures and adopt best practices
o    Ensure greater transparency and accountability in academic management and evaluate study programs
o    Ensure systematic documentation, strong internal communication, and provide a thorough basis for decision-making to improve institutional functioning.

As a recognized mechanism existed in other universities globally in the world's higher education system, IQAC has been instrumental in all universities in Bangladesh to create a quality culture and bring all stakeholders like students, academic staff, supporting staff, employers, society as well under a platform where they can exchange their views.

With the current upward growth of GDP and the expansion of the country's national economy along with achievements and visible advancements toward Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by reducing poverty, gender disparity, and ensuring basic needs to all at an affordable cost, Bangladesh has created a dignified place for herself in the international arena. Also, the target of fulfilling to achieve the status of an Upper middle-income country and ultimately developed country by 2041, there is a need to improve the quality of human capital and make them fit with the national demand that they can fulfil. To do these, several challenges that include budget deficiency in the education sector, weak monitoring, accountability and supervision, and poor strategic planning has to be addressed properly first.   

There is a common criticism that in the name of using the budget for improving the quality of higher education, the majority of the fund is used for infrastructural development which means constructing a new building, hostel, accommodation, dormitories, luxurious auditorium with modern equipment sometimes which are seen unnecessary and unused even can't match with the living standard of the general mass. But there is always a shortage of funds for library development, scientific research work, and department development works.

Even still the majority of the universities don't have a separate office with qualified faculties and adequate manpower at the IQAC office. In this case, the private universities are the main victims of the fund crisis where a large number of students study. Besides, with the shortage of qualified teaching staff having PhD or equivalent degrees tertiary level education programs in our country are facing tremendous challenges.  

In the case of overall development, it is now well recognized in the developed world that Bangladesh is going to be a part of the world's biggest economy and is contributing to different global issues and challenges. Besides these positive outcomes, it is also true that the tertiary education system still is facing difficulties to cope with global challenges and even is not fully prepared to capitalize on the creation and application of knowledge. Thus, skilled manpower is a prerequisite for social, economic, and political development which is interlinked with quality education.

And this is the responsibility of the universities, or other recognized educational institutions in the country to produce competent graduates who can be eligible enough to meet the requirements of the current job market to become a global employee of the world business. For these, a well-functioning internal IQAC mechanism is required and the government has to increase the funding options and opportunities for both public and private universities without doing any discrimination in the case of boosting up all IQAC offices of all types of higher educational institutions and providing sufficient research facilities to the interested faculties.
Dr Rajib Chakraborty is Additional Director (IQAC) Port City International University






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