T&L Quality Assurance and Quality Enhancement

Quality Audit by the Quality Assurance Council of the UGC

The QAC was established in 2007 under the aegis of the UGC in view of institutional expansion of their activities and a growing public interest in quality issues. It assists the UGC in providing third-party oversight of the quality of the institutions' educational provision. The terms of reference of the QAC includes, inter alia, the conduct of audits and other reviews as requested by the UGC, and report on the quality assurance mechanisms and quality of the offerings of institutions.

The QAC conducted two rounds of quality audit on HKU, respectively in April 2009 and November 2015. Both audits confirmed the high quality of the education provision at HKU, which is comparable to those of other world-class universities. The Report of the second audit, released in May 2016, concluded that "the University sets and maintains high academic standards through a variety of effective mechanisms, with due regard to external expertise and comparator institutions" (para. 2.12), and that "the University has a strong and widespread commitment to the quality of learning opportunities and has put in place an appropriate and comprehensive quality assurance and quality enhancement system that supports its over-arching strategic goal to be a leading international institution of higher learning" (para. 3.8).

The QAC will conduct the third cycle of quality audits on the eight UGC-funded universities in 2023 and 2024. All audit meetings will be conducted virtually, and those with HKU will take place in early December 2023.

The previous audit reports and further details of the upcoming audit are accessible from the Teaching and Learning website of the University https://tl.hku.hk/tl/quality-assurance/.