Dear Student,

Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) is starving and committed to ensuring that your higher education experience as a student learner is always the best that the university can provide to you. Besides, wherever further improvements are needed and can be made, the university will take all necessary measures to make them happen.  SQU has attained a National, Regional and International reputation for the quality of its higher education with first class resources and facilities to support its students learning experience.

To ensure that it continuously provide a high quality students learning experience, SQU implements of a variety of quality assurance processes and procedures.  A wide range of units and staff are involved in these processes and procedures.  However, your role as a student is very crucial for the successful implementation of  all these processes  and procedures. 

SQU uses a variety of methods and approaches to collect feedback information from you on your learning experience.  These methods and approaches include  discussions with your advisors, online Course and Instructor Evaluations, Staff/Student Liaison Committees, questionnaires for individual programs, and exit surveys that cover your whole period of study at SQU. 

Figure 1: Student advising, guidance and support system

SQU also recognizes that you may face significant challenges during your first transition into SQU,  especially with the new style of teaching and learning which may be different from what you used to experience at high school.  To make sure we are approaching this appropriately and providing the right support in the right time, the University will periodically survey you, particularly during your first year at SQU, to elicit your feedback. Therefore, we urge you to take this opportunity seriously and objectively and submit questionnaires and provide feedback as requested from you.  We want to learn directly from you if something goes wrong.  You can use also the online Quality Assurance Forum to express your feedback and comments on any of the topics listed there. We will be equally happy to hear from you about  learning and study practices  at SQU that you judge are particularly good.  This will help us select good practices and adopt them elsewhere in the University for others to benefit from. 

SQU operates Staff/Student committees which have been set up to give students opportunities to raise any concerns they may have in relation to their program of study or to facilities in their particular buildings etc.  These committees also provide the staff with a forum to inform students of issues they may have or information they may wish to convey.  Again, we would encourage you to play your part in making these groups meaningful in identifying actions to improve your learning experience at SQU.  

There are further ways to help inform us about how well the University is doing.  Each academic program at SQU is planned to be reviewed periodically.  The panels that review programs will meet with groups of students and get useful information about everything affecting your learning experience.  The meetings with students are considered very essential in this review process and constitute the core of the entire review exercise.

Thank you for your cooperation and involvement in the quality enhancement at SQU.