Press Release: Accreditation Process Review Workshop 15th – 17th of August 2016

The three day Accreditation Process Review Workshop officially began on the 15th of August 2016 at 10:00 am at Higher Education Commission H-8, Community Hall.

NBEACs primary objective is to transform and evolve to an effective, self-sustaining and credible accreditation body such as EQUIS, AACSB, and AMBA whose members will receive a competitive advantage over those that are nonmembers owing to its accreditation.

With respect to NBEACs policy it has to revise and thoroughly review the entire process after every two years. The very first process review workshop took place in August 2014 at HEC Regional Centre Lahore.

The meeting began with Mr. Ahtesham Ali Raja (Program Director- NBEAC) welcoming the participants. The program director gave a presentation sharing the purpose and objectives of this workshop. This was followed by a great deal of questions and answers. An in-depth review was apprehended.

The first day of the workshop focused on NBEAC management development initiatives and NBEAC registration process review. Extensive and detailed discussion took place amongst the peer reviewers and valuable feedback was shared by everyone.

The second day of the workshop focused upon the self-assessment process review. A very detailed and comprehensive review was apprehended regarding all nine criterion of NBEAC as per the information provided in the Self-Assessment Report, through onsite review and feedback of faculty and students. Categories of NBEAC were scrutinized in detail. Different council members shared their thoughts and ideas.

“Excellence is not entitlement” said Dr. Shaukat Brah, Former Dean, Karachi School of Business and Leadership- KSBL who is a very active member of the council. He said that NBEAC should serve as a center of excellence for business education in the country.

Prof.Dr. Zahoor Hassan Syed (Professor, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Lahore) said that NBEAC needs to move further towards achieving excellence, he further proposed three school of thoughts and ways through which this can be achieved.

Two group activities took place where council members sat in groups of four in order to edit the proformae and rubric (with the aid of track changes). In the group activity, the council members rephrased the SAR questions and the rubric, added new questions in the SAR to align it with the rubric, removed those questions that were repetitive and requested additional documents with SAR for review.  The group activity proved to be quite helpful and conducive.

Finally, the third and last day of the workshop focused on four crucial structural aspects of NBEAC i.e. peer review process review, development of NBEAC process manual annexes, NBEAC performance evaluation system review, reaccreditation and revisit policy review and mentor visit policy review.  Significant discussion points regarding peer reviewers and chairpersons, were discussed regarding the format and style of peer review report and its alignment with profile sheet and hardcopies of three sample reports were shared.  It was discussed that peer review report should be developed.

To conclude the three day vigorous workshop certificate distribution ceremony took place where the chief guest Prof. Dr. Javed Ashraf (Vice Chancellor, Quad-i-Azam University) graced the occasion with his presence and concluded the three day workshop by acknowledging the efforts made by NBEAC and giving a vote of thanks.

The workshop was attended by fourteen senior Peer review members including the three council members.