HEC

Higher Education Commission of Pakistan has approved the National Qualifications Framework of Pakistan, 2015 that is consistent with Bologna process. The Pakistan NQF consists of three key documents. The first document provides clearly defined levels of qualifications and learning outcomes in Knowledge, Skills and Competencies to be acquired by each graduate that are easily comprehended by the students, employers and human resource development specialists. The NQF document has focused on defining the structure of the qualifications based on the semester system and measuring the learning outcomes through credit hours assigned to each course. 

The second document of the NQF is entitled "Policy Guidelines for Implementation of Uniform Semester System in Higher Education Institutions of Pakistan." HEC had appointed a National Committee on Examination System (NCES) as a national task force to review the prevailing annual system of examinations used by HEIs. After detailed discussions with the stakeholders the task force recommend a uniform system of semester based assessment by faculty to objectively evaluate the academic performance of their students. The NCES developed a detailed set of guidelines and shared them widely with all HEIs for gradually adopting the recommended system of internal, valid, reliable and objective student examination system by 2008.

This revised document has been developed to be consistent with the 2015 NQF and to be uniformly implemented in all the HEIs in Pakistan. The revised policy guidelines are designed to cover a range of policy decisions pertaining to implementation of the assessment system recognized in and used by a large number of participating countries in the Bologna Agreement. This document will be shared widely with Pakistani HEIs for meticulous implementation at all levels of higher education.