The issue of quality has been identified as the major issue confronting the higher education sector in the Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF). Therefore, to enhance the quality of output and efficiency of the higher education learning systems, a mechanism of establishment of QECs has been developed by the Quality Assurance Committee to improve the standards of quality of higher education in a systematic way with uniformity across country.
In 2006-07 the Quality Enhancement Cells (QECs) have been established at ten public sector universities, where as in 2007-08 twenty more QECs were established in the public sector universities for improvement of their academic, teaching and learning standards. The QEC family is being extended to another fifteen public sector, fifteen private sector universities in 2009-10 and twenty four in public sector universities in 2010-11.