Centre for Academic Planning and Quality Assurance

The Centre of Academic Planning and Quality Assurance is dedicated to fostering a culture of quality and continuous academic renewal and curriculum transformation. We provide expert support and guidance in academic planning, quality assurance, and curriculum transformation, ensuring the University’s academic offerings remain relevant, innovative, and aligned with national standards. We work closely with academic departments and other professional support divisions to develop new programmes and review existing offerings.

We focus on enabling academics to critically reflect on and enhance their own practices to improve the learning experience for our students. To integrate quality assurance and enhancement into everyday practices across the institution, we support environments as they undergo periodic internal and external reviews. Our aim is to make these processes constructive and valuable, ensuring continuous improvement and alignment with institutional goals.

Contact us
+27 21 808 9034

Physical address
​14 Murray Street
Stellenbosch

Our Work

The Division has the following focus areas

APQ manages a comprehensive quality management system that supports the evaluation and continuous improvement of academic departments and support services. This involves facilitating self-evaluations, peer reviews, and the implementation of quality enhancement actions. We also guide the development, internal approval, as well as external accreditation and registration of new academic programmes and modules while supporting the review, redesign, and renewal of existing curricula. 

Our role in ensuring compliance with national higher education policies and standards requires close collaboration with the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) and other regulatory bodies. We serve as a crucial liaison between the University and these external bodies, interpreting policies and regulations and facilitating institutional audits and reviews.

Our Services​​​​

We work collaboratively with faculties and other support environments to shape academic offerings that meet our institutional vision and national guidelines. We help develop new modules, and programmes and support the regular review of existing offerings to ensure they remain relevant and robust. Our work contributes to the ongoing transformation of curricula, fostering a shift towards the Africanisation of our academic offerings.

We facilitate SU’s quality management system by supporting environments through institutional processes like peer evaluations and self-evaluations, providing feedback and assistance with improvement plans and collaborating with stakeholders to develop approaches to quality enhancements and programme renewal.