Quality Assurance

There is a quality assurance Unit at the institute. Its main function is to facilitate quality assurance at all levels of the institute with a aim of attaining total quality management throughout the institute.

Quality in higher education is a pre-requisite for accessing the knowledge that guarantees economic development. This makes the condition of higher education in Tanzania a very critical issue. Ensuring quality is a fundamental responsibility of every higher education institution, through the establishment of strong internal quality assurance systems. Recognizing this, the ICPS is committed to Quality Assurance as a means towards maintaining and enhancing the quality of the total student learning experience. The quality assurance at ICPS is embedded in principles referred to as good practices provided by NACTE to assure and improve quality standards in Technical Colleges in Tanzania.

Quality assurance is all about the need to promote and maintain quality, in our case the quality of higher education in our institution. However, currently, quality assurance is sometimes misconceptualised and perceived differently by different stakeholders in higher education. Thus, quality assurance is sometimes perceived as an aspect of control, that is, quality control, a term most suitable in the manufacturing sector. Indeed, quality assurance is all about continuous improvement of the quality of education and the products thereof, through a systematic process, for which openness to comparison with others based on agreed benchmarks is paramount. Quality assurance promotes accountability of our institution to our stakeholders. It promotes transparency of our systems.

Quality should be the concern of everyone in our institution. It is, however, important that there should be a central structure that supports the implementation of our internal quality assurance system, hence the establishment of Quality Assurance Unit (QAU). For effective implementation of the Quality Assurance (QA) process, the College Management Committee (CMC) fully supports the Quality Assurance initiative; and we undertake to create conducive environment for effective implementation of our internal quality management system.

Quality Assuranceis a responsibility of the whole College fraternity: management, academics, support/administrative staff, other staff and students. It helps to have a co-ordinated system of Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) that is applied consistently across the College, while recognizing discipline variations and the different external demands placed on different disciplines. A single system ensures equity, placing the same level of expectations and action on all discipline areas, and allows for cross-disciplinary dialogue and sharing of good practices.

As a custodian of Quality, the Unit for Quality Assurance is responsible for, among others: Operationalise the College QA system within the College setting; Provide technical support on QA matters to relevant authorities and the College, Oversee College QA functions in all College activities and ensure compliance to QA requirements. Others are constantly update the College on new and global developments on QA matters for Higher Education Institutions, Development and monitoring the implementation of ICPS quality assurance system;  sharing best practices with key stakeholders in quality assurance implementation at ICPS through research and benchmarking; promoting a ‘quality culture’ among ICPS stakeholders; and building capacity on quality assurance among staff and students.

Quality Assurance at ICPS makes sure individuals are doing the right things and the right way.The QA team’s job is to see that standards, processes, and policies (or other governing/guiding “writ”) are in place and carried out; to recommend and implement improvements to them, and to ensure that the people that need to know about them know about them. QA “audits” or “reviews” are intended to determine the efficacy of governing procedures.