1.0 NKUMBA UNIVERSITY QUALITY ASSURANCE DIRECTORATE
1 PREAMBLE
The Quality Assurance Directorate (QAD) was established in 2009 in accordance with the requirements of the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) Quality Assurance Framework for Uganda Universities (2006). This Framework provides that “institutions [universities] are primarily responsible for quality and quality management. Each institution shall have an independent quality assurance unit that sets quality assurance control guidelines in a university and that continuously reviews all programs, teaching, and assessments.” (NCHE, 2006, 17).
1.1 VISION
To be the epitome for achieving quality education that meets national and international standards.
1.2 MISSION
To establish and maintain quality in the provision of Education at Nkumba University that will nurture competence, confidence, creativity, and moral character.
1.3 THE MOTTO
High Quality begets High Performance.
2.1 MANDATE OF THE QUALITY ASSURANCE DIRECTORATE
The Quality Assurance Directorate exists in Nkumba University for systematic monitoring and evaluation to ensure that standards of quality are being promoted. Quality assurance is a process-driven approach with specific steps to help define and attain goals.
The Quality Assurance office is vital to the university system because it provides the platform for verifying or determining whether the university’s services meet or exceed the customer expectations, and whether the quality controls in place ensure that the University’s products (the students) exceed expectations.
The Quality Assurance Directorate is responsible for coordinating, supervising, monitoring, and evaluating quality assurance processes and practices in areas of academic programs, teaching and learning, facilities, research, and community outreach.
The Directorate employs a number of quality assurance mechanisms like quality audit, program review, and staff evaluations, SWOT analysis, external examining, etc., to monitor, assess, control and audit its quality.
In abide to adherence to the National Council for Higher Education quality assurance requirements; the university set up a Quality Assurance Unit that was established in 2009 and became a full-fledged Directorate in 2011.
The Quality Assurance Directorate is also tasked with coordinating quality assurance initiatives and activities for academic and non-academic units. It oversees the internal and external quality assurance assessment of the university’s programs.
There are two dimensions to the activities of the Quality Assurance office. The internal quality assurance mechanism includes self-evaluations by each of the six schools of the University or University-wide evaluations. Such evaluations use instruments or guidelines developed by the University Quality Assurance Office, and reports are accordingly made.
The second major dimension to evaluation is the external assessment of University programs and facilities by the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), and professional bodies such as the Law Council, Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council (UNMC) and the Medical Council. These bodies use instruments or guidelines they have developed to assess the quality of University facilities, programs, activities as well as staff.
The Quality Assurance Directorate reports directly to the vice chancellor and works closely with the University registrar, Deputy Vice Chancellor and University Secretary. It is currently managed by two staff namely: Director Quality Assurance and Quality Assurance Administrator.
