LAHORE: The Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) has evolved a comprehensive strategy to improve the ranking of higher education institutions of the province.

Punjab Minister for Higher Education Raja Yasir Hamayun Sarfraz, PHEC Acting Chairperson and Higher Education Department Secretary Momin Agha, PHEC Director General Zia Batool and representatives of eight public sector higher education institutions/universities of the province held a meeting at the commission’s secretariat on March 20.

One of the participants in the meeting told Dawn that the commission had developed a strategy to improve the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and Times Higher Education (THE) ranking of the nine universities of the province especially in Asia and focusing specifically on indicators of the two ranking systems.

Commission will invite QS and THE officials for capacity building of nine universities’ staff

He said the commission would invite representatives of the QS and THE Quality Enhancement Cell for training and capacity building of the officials of the selected universities.

He said currently Pakistani universities were not sharing the data including admissions, foreign faculty, students, PhDs, published journals, impact factors and how many grants won from the ranking agencies.

PHEC DG Quality Assurance and Accreditation Ms Batool briefed the meeting about the proposal to develop the local universities as per international quality benchmarks and building capacity of universities for improved rankings.

She said the strategy would be executed phase-wise and the first phase is based on the previous ranking reflections, discipline diversity and geographical proximity.

She said the commission had identified nine universities - eight public and one private sector - including University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, Punjab University, Lahore, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Government College University, Lahore, University of Sargodha, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, Lahore College for Women University, Bahauddin Zikariya University, Multan and University of Lahore.

She said PHEC and HED would facilitate the selected universities to collaborate with the leading global ranking agencies including QS and THE to work on ranking indicators relevant to the higher education sector in Asia. “A follow-up mechanism would be opted to evaluate the progress on the indicators and would suggest qualitative improvements to select universities,” she said.

Ms Batool said the second phase of the strategy would focus on further improvements on the indicators of two ranking platforms including capacity building in term of the hiring of qualified faculty and human resource, increase in research funding and the introduction of inbound/outbound student exchange programmes.

“PHEC would continuously monitor the performance of the universities and help them hone their standing on the ranking radars. The scope of the potential universities will later be expanded to other public and private sector universities in Punjab,” she said.

Ms Batool said the selected universities would be equipped with training on ranking attributes and relevant technical assistance in line with the needs of local universities.

Later, vice chancellors and representatives from the universities shared their views on improving the ranking in universities.

Minister Raja Yasir Hamayun Sarfraz would head a working group of the PHEC, HED and selected universities under the rubric of “Improved Ranking Reflection of HEIs in Punjab” to work for improvement in quality standards of higher education institutions of the province.

The PHEC was mandated to engage with the selected universities for increased participation in international rankings for 2021.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2019