Adminstrative Activities
First PD retires and New PD joins
Mr. Ruknud-Deen Ahmad, the first Project Director of HEQEP (Additional Secretary to the Government) retired from government service on 28th August, 2010. UGC and HEQEP officials have highly commended the efficient and dynamic leadership of Mr. Ruknud-Deen Ahmad. Mrs Kaniz Fatema (Additional Secretary to the Government ) joined as Project Director on October 6, 2010. Officers and employees of HEQEP heartily welcomed the new PD. During the transition period Mr. Md. Korban Ali, AIF Coordinator of HEQEP discharged the duties of the Project Director till October 6, 2010.
Senior Procurement Officer joins
Mr. Md. Mohsin, (Deputy Secretary to the Government) joined as Senior Procurement Officer in the project on August 24, 2010. Before joining the project he was serving as Additional Deputy Commissioner of Mymensing district. Procurement Officer resumes duty after foreign training Procurement Officer of the project Md. Alamgir Hossain took part in a 3-week training program on “ “Procurement Management in the Public Sector” held at the International Training Centre of ILO in Turin, Italy from October 11 to 29 2010. He resumes his duty on November 1.
AIF Training Planned
Training of 2nd batch of University Academic Innovation Fund Secretariat (UAIFS) Officers will be arranged in the month of December,2010. Thirty participants are expected to take part in the training.
AIF Activities
(1) Complete Proposals scrutinized timely
HEQEPU received 552 complete proposals (CPs) from 29 public and 03 private Universities by 12 August, 2010. The numbers of CPs were 251, 232 and 69 for Window 1, 2 & 3 respectively. As per discipline concerned the numbers of CPs were 104 in Humanities & Social Science, 377 in Science & Technology, 68 in University-wide, and 03 in Self-assessment. The HEQEPU carefully scrutinized all these CPs and by the end of August 2010 forwarded all documents to the UGCBAIF for scrutiny-decision and selection of ARP for each CP.
(CP scrutinizing meeting at HEQEP)
(2) Reviewing of CPs
The UGCBAIF nominated two ARPs for reviewing each CP, and the HEQEPU completed sending all the CPs to nominated ARP members by 19 September 2010. Altogether, 228 ARP members who are distinguished professors of different universities have been providing their invaluable service as ARP members. The UGCAIF unit has been keeping close contact with these ARP members and meeting up all the queries related to CP evaluation. UGC Chairman Professor Nazrul Islam and two Members of UGC, Professor Dr. Md. Tajul Islam and Professor Dr. Amena Begum has been keeping close contact and monitoring the progress of CP-review by the ARP members. It is expected that the evaluation process of CPs by ARP members would be completed by 21 October, 2010.
(Review meting with UGC members)
Procurement Activities
Procurement activities of the project is going on smoothly. Procurement of the following five packages is under different stages of progress:
• G-6 (Supply and Installation of BdREN Equipment);
• G-21(Supply and Installation of LAN and IT Equipment for UGC);
• G-45 (Leasing of Local Loop Fiber);
• G-16 (Printing of Newsletter for HEQEP) and
• S-9(Selection of International Partnership Organization to Implement BdREN).
Invitation for Tenders/BIds (IFT/IFB),Tender/Bidding Documents, Expression of Interest (EOI), Request for Proposal (RFP), and all, other procurement related information is available in HEQEP website, Any further information on procurement can be obtained from the procurement section (telephone 02-8189023) of the project.
Monitoring and Evaluation Activities
Monitoring & Evaluation (M & E) being critical for any project to unfold the implementation issues and provide direction to produce its results as expected, a built-in-mechanism has been developed for every component of HEQEP to ensure proper monitoring and evaluation. At the central level a small Monitoring and Evaluation Unit (MEU) has been established within the HEQEPU which is responsible for designing, organizing and managing the M & E activities of all project components. One Senior Program Officer, one Program Officer and one M&E Specialist have been engaged for M&E activities. The Unit has designed a time-bound action plan.
One of the key outcome indicators of the project is increased level of satisfaction of students and faculty regarding the quality of teaching and research environment, and employers regarding the relevance of teaching and research programs. In order to measure this outcome, Satisfaction Surveys are included in the project design.
A Satisfaction Survey has been planned targeting students, faculties and employers of the AIF beneficiary institutes / departments in order to assess how the direct beneficiaries value the interventions under AIF. The baseline survey will take place soon after the initial selection of winners, and there will be two follow-ups at mid-term and at completion.
The impact of the AIF will also be assessed through a comparison of outcomes between the AIF beneficiary population (treatment group) and the population not receiving the benefits of AIF (control group). When the AIF sub-projects take off, progress reports will be submitted by the respective project managers of the AIF sub-project twice a year. The MEU will arrange a validation survey for 20% of the sub-projects and will match the findings with self reported information.
(First PD of HEQEP at his last working day)
