FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES

The Faculty educates and trains students for health related professions, which implies that the Faculty have to work in close collaboration with the respective statutory bodies as well as with the services division, albeit provincial, private or nongovernmental. All education and training programmes containing outcomes where students have to practice according to a prescribed professional code, have to be accredited by the respective statutory bodies.

Complying with this prerequisite, allows students who completed the programmes, to practice as professionals in the country. Hence, these students are not only registered as students at the NWU, but also as students at the respective statutory councils, before they become fully fledged professionals on completion of training.

Self-evaluation, as the primary mechanism for quality assurance, is the responsibility of each managerial head in a school, department unit or faculty and applies to academic and support units. Due to the unique composition of the Schools, the Quality Assurance Structures in the respective Schools are differentiated, and each School has developed its own Quality Manual.

As part of quality assurance, all lecturers are involved in the ITEA (Institutional Teaching Excellence Award) programme, and this is done over a 5-year cycle.

During external evaluation, the internal evaluation process is validated by experts from outside the NWU. The quality of academic programs is also assessed by the Council on Higher Education's Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC). Professional bodies play a supplementary role by focusing on the quality assessment of professional qualifications and programs.