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Representatives from 40 universities participated in a two-day workshop on developing academic program specifications organized at the University of Management and Technology (UMT) campus, Lahore, with partial financial support of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences and in collaboration with National Committee of Quality Assurance, HEC. Prof Dr Abdul Raouf was the chief organizer of the workshop. He was assisted by Dr Muhammad Usman Awan, Engr. Salman Saeed Qureshi and Mr Haris Aslam. Dr Hasan Sohaib Murad, Rector, UMT, addressed the closing ceremony and distributed certificates to the participants.
During the workshop, exercises in developing various aspects of program specifications were conducted. At the end, a template for preparing such specified was developed.
It is pertinent to note that the enhancement of educational standards is one of the most important challenges facing all countries of the world. Such enhancements enable nations to be capable of implementing reforms driven by globalization. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan has recognized their priority for the economy and society of assisting universities to make all their higher education programs comparable to standards to the best in the world. Such enhancement will help to fulfill the main educational aims, which is to provide society with graduates
capable of achieving its professional and research needs and of effectively participating in developing and implementing intended national policies.
In order to ensure the production of graduates accordingly to internationally recognized standards all universities need to develop appropriate internal system to specify the quality of their academic programs, specify these internal outcomes in terms of the attributes of their graduates, to review their performance against the specifications and to take steps to indentify matters that need to be addressed as part of continuing improvement.
Such actions increase the skills of graduates and enhance their competitive capacity in the national and global labor markets. To achieve the above objectives it is necessary to specify academic programs according to international standards and on the basis of its intended learning outcomes.
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