Definition of Quality:

Quality can be defined as the means through which an institution can guarantee with confidence and certainty, that the standards of its educational provision are being maintained and enhanced.

• Quality assurance is used as common denomination for a variety of mechanisms intended to control, guarantee and promote quality in higher education institutions.
• It is a developmental aspect of higher education, and, therefore, will never be achieved in total.
• We often consider graduates as the end product/output of education. It is not about just the Output but about the Outcome of higher education institutions that matters in today’s market economy.
• The number of graduating students is the output, while the QUALITY of graduates is the OUTCOME, in other words, the competency of a graduate makes him/her useful to the society.

Quality Assurance is one of the following three pillars of education upon which the whole structure of Higher Education in Pakistan will be based.

• Access
• Quality
• Relevance

Increasing access to higher education without enhancing its quality and relevance to the needs of the country cannot be expected to achieve the goal of a knowledge based economy

• It is a common belief/perception that majority of the Pakistani universities do not meet the international standards of higher education
• We have to accept Quality assurance as a challenge, which cannot be met without enhancing the quality on sustainable basis
• Quality Assurance is an activity carried out at two levels i.e. External & Internal
• External Quality Assurance (also called as accreditation) is carried out by regulatory/professional bodies at the national level to ensure the minimum performance level of educational programmes and institutions, in this case the HEC.
• Internal Quality Assurance is an internal and integral part of the institution’s administration and management systems.
• It implements a set of policies, programmes and procedures set-up by an institution.

HEC Quality Measurement Tools

1. FACULTY SATISFACTION LEVEL : As required by Higher Education Commission, All members of The Program Faculty will assess their respective Program according to following criteria. The Program Director will report the findings in the Annual Monitoring Report. (ANNEX-II)
2. STUDENT SATISFACTION LEVEL: As required by Higher Education Commission of the students of the Program will give their feed back according to following criteria. The survey will be conducted each year. The Program Director will report the findings in the Annual Monitoring report (ANNEX-III)
3. ALUMNI SATISFACTION LEVEL :As recommended by Higher Education Commission the purpose of this survey is to obtain alumni input on the quality of education and the level of preparation they had at Nishtar Medical University. The Program Director will conduct this survey and throughout the year and carry out analysis of the opinion received at the end of the year and include in the Annual Monitoring Report. (ANNEX-IV)

QEC Processes:
The academic standards are developed and arranged as predetermined and explicit levels of achievements that must be reached by the students, the learning facilities and environment must be arranged by the institution and the procedures must be administrated efficiently and effectively by different persons and bodies in the university.

The Quality Assurance is therefore carried out in three (03) cycles.

1. Monitoring:Continues monitoring of the Program by the Program Director, resulting in Annual Monitoring Report. The monitoring report is based upon the report of the program director regarding experience of running the program, the problems that were encountered and the problems which could not be solved. This is carried out every year. The assessment of each resident is carried out by evaluating the residents at 360 degrees in the light of the Portfolio given at 1.3. To assess the students and residents of the clinical programs according to the six (6) elements of the portfolio at 360 degrees, opinions are also obtained from the patients, peers, nurses, paramedics and others who are related to the program. This is the internal evaluation of the student/resident by the Program Faculty as coordinated by the Program Director that decision is made for granting progression to the next year.
2. Internal Review:This is a Peer Review and is conducted by a Peer Review Committee constituted by the University comprising of two (02) teachers of the same specialty of the program, who are not members of the Program Faculty Committee these members may be preferably from outside the University if available. The Program Director will assist the Peer review Committee to carry out the review.The cycle 2 is carried out every three (03) years.
3. External Review:Accreditation or External Review The quality review is carried out by external reviews appointed by a Non Governmental Accreditation Body, Board or Council which do not run, manage or administer any such/similar program. This cycle will be repeated every five (05) years, and the university makes all Accreditation reports available to the public. KEMU will be prepared its Monitoring Reports and Internal Review Reports of each Program to offer them to the External Review to obtain the Accreditation.