Abstract:

Over the past two decades, quality assurance in higher education has become increasingly common in major parts of the world. There is a substantial change in the Higher education across all gulf countries including Saudi Arabia (KSA). The full commitment and support of KSA’s government for quality improvements in the Higher Education sector has brought about calls for greater accountability on the part of educational providers and the measuring of outputs through quality assurance processes. As a result, the National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA) has been established to align the educational systems with the international standards. NCAAA periodically reviews and evaluates performance of existing and new educational institutions based on the quality standards with respect to teaching and learning and its support services.
This research paper presents a case study of the methodology which narrates the quality assurance and assessment efforts taken by a higher education institution for the last 10 years. How the scope and nature of quality assurance processes, their performance indicators and the need of trainings have been defined and implemented by the institute. How Saudi government’s full commitment and support for quality improvements have triggered different kinds of stakeholders in universities to become aware of the ensuring and monitoring quality at all the levels. The paper focuses on the endeavors done by a young private institute to implement a quality assurance system and the major challenges it faced during it planning and implementation phases.
This paper has been divided into three sections: The first section will provide an overview of the academic experience (strength and weakness) with respect to quality assurance in KSA. The second section will present a case study related to Prince Sultan University (PSU) to show how quality culture was developed and implemented in PSU, highlighting the best practices in Teaching and Learning and the main issues faced during its implementation. The third section will highlight the recommendations on how to improve quality of Teaching and Learning.

Keywords:

Quality Assurance, Learning and Teaching, Assessment, Higher Education.