CQPA Director Selected as Member of HEQC Accreditation Committee
DUT’s Director of the Centre for Quality Promotion and Assurance (CQPA), Bella Sattar, has been selected as a member of the prestigious Accreditation Committee (AC) of the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC).
Sattar will be a member of the HEQC of the Council for Higher Education (CHE) for the period of April 2015 to March 2018. The HEQC is excited to have Sattar on board and is looking forward to her contribution to the Committee which will enhance the quality assurance role of the Accreditation Committee in considering applications from higher institutions of higher education for the accreditation and re-accreditation of higher education programmes.
The CHE is an independent statutory body which has executive responsibility for quality assurance and promotion, and discharges this responsibility through the establishment of a permanent Committee – as required by the Higher Education Act – the HEQC.
Sattar, who is not new to the HEQC, sees her selection as an opportunity to reshape and sharpen her focus of frameworks and criteria, and to review underpinning principles that were established many years ago as well as ascertain whether associated accreditation systems and processes are in keeping with the intentions embedded in the founding Principles. “My membership to the AC provides a helicopter view of, and deep insights into, curriculum renewal across the higher education spectrum,” she added.
Sattar was first introduced to HEQC when she was a member of the first board and also served on the Executive Committee during the time when higher education in South Africa was formulating frameworks, policies and criteria.
She holds a BSc from the then University of Durban-Westville (now UKZN), a Diploma in Tertiary Education from UNISA, a National Higher Diploma in Medical Technology from the former ML Sultan (now DUT) and a MMedSc degree from UKZN. She is currently registered for a doctoral degree at DUT. Sattar has been with DUT for 37 years. She first served the University as a Lecturer in Medical Microbiology and Head of Department at the Department of Medical Sciences. She has been Director at CQPA from 2000.
In her term as a member of HEQC, Sattar hopes to hone her skills with regard to programme design and development as it relates to accreditation. “I hope my term in the AC will elevate the profile of the CQPA and DUT nationally. I also see this appointment as affirmation of the quality and standard of the work of the CQPA,” she said.
– Noxolo Memela
Pictured: Bella Sattar, DUT’s Director of the Centre for Quality Promotion and Assurance (CQPA), who has been selected as a member of the prestigious Accreditation Committee (AC) of the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC).
