The BUSE Quality Assurance department held a Pre-audit workshop for auditors on 7th August 2019 at the Main Campus. The workshop aimed at bringing awareness to quality auditors on the audit principles that they were to adhere to during audit exercises. The quality auditors were drawn from various academic and academic support departments.
Speaking at the workshop, one of the Quality Assurance Officers, Ms Juliana Mangwiro said the workshop provided guidance on how to identify risks that warrant attention. Apart from promoting appreciation of quality audits in the university system by the quality auditors, Ms Mangwiro added that the workshop also provided guidance on issues to focus on during quality audits.
The Quality Assurance Auditor, Dr Varaidzo Denhere explained at length the various definitions of quality auditing. The simple definition looked at quality auditing as the process through which a systematic examination of a quality system is executed by an internal or external quality auditor.
“Quality audits constitute a key element in the quality management systems of organisations. They are also key elements in the International Standards Organisation (ISO) quality system standard, ISO 9001,” said Dr Denhere.
Dr Denhere explained that BUSE quality auditors were appointed by the University Registrar upon recommendation by the Quality Assurance Committee and they served for a two year period. Their role is to carry out the audit process which involved departmental visits and audits. After departmental audits, the quality auditors subsequently draft a summary report of their findings which is then submitted to the Quality Assurance Committee for their annotations. Each Academic Support Department is audited using a department-specific audit instrument. This year, quality assurance annual audits for academic support departments will commence on the 19th to the 30th of August 2019. For academic departments, the exercise was scheduled for the 2nd to 20th September 2019. Dr Denhere urged departments to prepare for this important exercise. “Audit outcomes are important in that they indicate how closely the institution complies with its defined quality system processes and procedures,” she said.
