PESHAWAR: Research and other activities regarding quality assurance carried out in the institutes of higher education should be translated into economic development and overall uplift of the society, said Syed Zafar Ali Shah, the secretary of higher education department.

He was speaking as chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of the first international conference on quality assurance in higher education organised by quality enhancement cell of Khyber Medical University here on Monday.

He said that in the past, higher education sector was not gained too much importance owing to various reasons but the present government not only established new universities but also improved standard of education.

Besides Dr Ghulam Raza Bhatti, the member operations and planning of Higher Education Commission Islamabad, KMU Vice-chancellor Dr Arshad Javaid, KMU Registrar Dr Mohammad Saleem Gandapur, QEC Director Dr Jamil Ahmad, Deputy Director and chief organiser of the event Asiyah Bukhari, representatives and heads of QEC’s of more than 97 universities of the country, researchers, quality assurance experts from Germany, the USA, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran and UK were also present on the occasion.

Speakers at conference say research at educational institutes should help in uplift of society

Mr Shah said that developed nations made progress as they gave priority to higher education. He said that focus on quality assurance paved the way for their overall development.

He said that number of universities reached 41 whereas the number of degree colleges was increased to 250 in the province.

He said that government introduced four years BS programme at undergraduate to improve standard of higher education.

He said that for the first time in the history of the province, a teacher training institute for college teachers was established.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Ghulam Raza Bhatti said that HEC played vital role in improving quality of higher education sector by adopting certain measures.

He said that the number of research papers of Pakistani researchers published and viewed across the globe was more than those of UK, Brazil, China, Russia and India.

Dr Arshad Javaid said on the occasion the university was progressing in right direction and in a short period of 10 years it became one of the top institutions of the country.

He said that quality assurance managers played a crucial role in ensuring international standards by all means.

Prof Heinz Ulrich Schmidt, the representative of Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation Bonn, Germany; Prof Khalid M El-Hassan from Ohio University; Prof Abbas Bazargan from University of Tehran; and Prof Abdul Wahid Usmani of King Saud University, Saudi Arabia also spoke on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2017