In recent years it has become a compulsion that institutions of higher education reveal the effectiveness of their academic programs in providing high quality education to satisfy their stakeholders. This has led the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to develop methods for assessing the quality of academic programs. To enhance the quality of output and efficiency of the higher education learning systems, a mechanism of establishment of Quality Enhancement Cells (QECs) has been developed by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) of HEC. For the purpose, Sixty Nine QECs are established at Public Sector universities. While a QEC at IST is established in the fourth phase.  HEC QEC Page

The QECs are required to develop and implement the processes of quality assurance with promises of quality enhancement to meet the international standards of higher education. The cells are working as per guidelines given by Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). QEC gets the capacity building training from HEC. To implement and disseminate that acquired knowledge into learning environment of the institution, they are given action plans/targets biannually from HEC. QEC is responsible to follow the action plans & submit the progress reports against the plans. Quality Assurance Agency then assesses the progress of the QEC through quantitative / scorecard system.

The QEC of IST has also been working under the guidelines given by QAA and is following the action plans. “As per the latest quantitative assessment by HEC, the QEC of IST has obtained total score of 92% for the period ending December 30, 2012 and has been rated in “W” category”