Introduction

Master of Civil Engineering programs

Lac Hong University (LHU) has identified higher education quality assurance as a pivotal factor for sustainable development in the context of regional and global integration. Accordingly, since 2012, the Office of Educational Testing and Quality Assurance (OETQA) has been established as a specialised unit responsible for advising the Board of Rectorate on organizing and implementing the university’s quality assurance activities. Since then, quality assurance has become an official and continuous activity at LHU.

In order to provide a comprehensive overview of the quality of the education Master of Civil Engineering programme offered by the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies. This self-assessment report (SAR) is prepared in accordance with the guidelines from ASEAN University Network’s Quality Assurance (AUN-QA, Version 4.0). This is the official outcome of a joint effort of all members of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies (FPS) and Faculty of Civil Engineering (FCE) with ample support from the Board of Trustees and Board of Rectors in continuously improving the educational quality at both programme and institution levels. This is one of the key steps to satisfy the assessment criteria required by AUN-QA and others by some international/regional accreditation bodies, such as in 2017 and 2023 we achieved the quality accreditation at the institutional level by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET).

Additionally, in June 2024, we underwent an AUN-QA institutional assessment at version 3.0, achieving a satisfactory result. This SAR consists of 4 major parts and closely follows a set of 8 criteria mentioned in the Guide to AUN-QA Assessment at Programme level version 4.0. Specifically, Part I provides a brief introduction and overview of LHU and FPS and FCE and serves as the opening of the SAR whereas Part II presents a detailed description and the self-assessment of the Master of Civil Engineering programme in the consequence of 8 criteria specified by AUN-QA. An analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the programme is discussed in Part III with some practical recommendations to close the gaps identified and key action plans to implement such recommendations. Finally, Part IV contains appendices of glossary and related supporting documents and evidence. From our first version of SAR and based on our self-evaluation, the Master of Civil Engineering programme satisfactorily meets the majority of the AUN-QA requirements.