THE standard of education, especially of the higher education, in Pakistan demands several steps on a war footing so that it may match the prevailing standards around the globe. One of the processes that may assure and advance the quality of teaching and learning is the academic valuation. In principle, it is meant for having a clear picture regarding the faculty performance within a given framework. Many areas of educational process may be improved with the help of such a practice.

For instance, it can help in designing curriculum and setting up the learning objectives. The scope in terms of market demand as well as best practices and the resources to be used in order to achieve the set goals may also be accomplished in this manner. The judgment of connectivity of courses and coherence evaluation of curricula is also possible by it.

While the purpose of such practice for individuals and mostly novice teachers is to provide support for effective delivery of contents so that the grasp level of students may be high, it may be useful for enhancing the overall efficacy of educational processes and to safeguard quality in academic as well as cocurricular teaching activities.

For the institutions of higher education, this will ensure proper institutional functioning and monitoring the performance so far as academic and research standards are concerned. It helps to improve administrative aspects and leads for accomplishing excellence.

There is thus a high need that academic institutions, especially the universities make internal assessment a regular practice. To accomplish this, visits by panel comprising external contemporaries and senior experienced colleagues to identify the areas of strength and weaknesses should be arranged on a regular basis.

This will help improve the academic standard for which there is a plenty of room as far as teaching, working environment and organisational structure of a particular academic setting are concerned.

Dr Intikhab Ulfat
Karachi

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2022