Centre for academic development services

Quality Assurance (QA)

• HEQC Founding Document
• Proposed Criteria for the HEQC's First Cycle of Audits
• QA Presentation (MS PowerPoint format)
• Evaluation Assistant
• Policies
  • Curriculum Development and Review
  • Medunsa Policy on Evaluation of Teaching
  • Medunsa Policy on Evaluating Courses and Programmes
• HEQC Audit Framework (MS PowerPoint format)
• HEQC Accreditation Framework (Rich Text Format)
• QA Manual (PDF Format)
  • Quality Management (MS PowerPoint format)
• Mandate, Responsibilities, Activities and Plans for quality assurance in higher education2002 - 2003 (MS PowerPoint Format)

Summary

A quality assurance system in higher education has been identified as the appropriate mechanism for facilitating the achievement of goals enunciated in recent legislation, such as the SAQA Act, Skills Development Act and Higher Education Act. All institutions of higher education are required to establish a mechanism of internal quality assurance and the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC), a permanent committee of the Council on Higher Education (CHE), established by the Higher Education Act 101 of 1997 will be responsible for formulating a system of external quality assurance in higher education. The Founding Document of the HEQC outlines its aims, philosophy, responsibilities and approach to quality and quality assurance (QA) and is an important source of information in understanding the procedure for the external QA audit.

Quality assurance is of particular significance at MEDUNSA, especially in constantly improving all processes and operations associated with our core functions, and evaluating the extent to which the mission and vision of our University is met. As a means of systematically structuring the process of QA at MEDUNSA, a Quality Assurance Committee of Senate, chaired by the DVC & Vice-Principal, Professor M.D. Bomela has been established to manage the process of QA at MEDUNSA.

A principle of SELF-REFLECTION and SELF-EVALUATION aimed at quality improvement underpins the internal quality assurance process. The process is not aimed at demonstrating how good a department/faculty/institution is and comparing it to another but is to evaluate how effectively and honestly strengths and weaknesses can be identified and managed. This requires that responsibility and accountability for quality assurance and quality improvement rests with individuals, departments (academic & non-academic) and faculties.

CADS is currently discussing QA with academic departments.