Meet the team

The Centre for Quality Promotion and Assurance (CQPA) is responsive to national imperatives, operates within the regulatory framework of the university, and is committed to quality promotion and improvement. The scope of the CQPA embraces all sectors of the university and includes:

• quality promotion and enhancement
• academic planning
• monitoring and evaluation
• preparation for national reviews, accreditation and audit

The university framework for quality assurance

The DUT strategic goals and objectives include specific goals for:

• quality teaching and learning across all disciplines, campuses and sites of delivery
• quality enhancement and planning

The university has an established and comprehensive framework for quality assurance. The principles and concepts that underpin the framework include that:

• ownership of quality and standards rests with the university and ultimate responsibility is formally vested in the Senate
• day-to-day responsibility for the quality of academic provision, service provision and the student learning experience rests with faculties, programme teams and support departments
• processes for monitoring and evaluation of the quality and standard of academic provision are grounded in evidence-based reflection
• the university promotes the effective involvement of students in monitoring and evaluation

At the DUT quality promotion and assurance is underpinned by robust processes and practices to:

• maintain and enhance the quality of the students’ learning experience
• secure and safeguard academic standards of the learning programmes
• promote, develop and sustain a culture of quality
• encourage all staff to take responsibility, on a day-to-day basis, for the quality of provision and for the quality assurance processes thereof
• promote self-evaluation at all levels of provision to foster continuous improvement

All departments are responsible for the implementation of systems and processes for quality assurance. For academic departments this includes safeguarding academic standards at the level of the academic programme/s provided by the department.

At the university, monitoring and evaluation of academic programmes is grounded in the annual quality monitoring process which contributes to the six-yearly programme review and evaluation process. The evaluation of inter-related processes that collectively involve both academic and support departments is effected through thematic reviews. Evaluation of related support departments may be conducted as part of such thematic review processes. Specific support departments may also be identified for auditing by the approved external auditors. The model for quality promotion and assurance at DUT is illustrated below.

A model for quality promotion and assurance at the DUT