Quality & Audit Head

Role Summary

NIAT runs a long student lifecycle with many functions touching the same student: onboarding, programme operations, instruction, student and parent relationships, support tickets, curricular content and assessments, co-curricular programmes and their assessments (such as GRIT, BRAVE, and MINT), extra-curricular activity, and internships and placements. Each function has its own processes, and each is run at many campuses. The Quality & Audit Head builds the independent function that checks whether the critical transactions in every one of these processes are being done correctly and the same way everywhere. The method is simple and repeatable: understand each function's process, decide which transactions are critical, audit a random sample of them on a fixed schedule against a clear standard, and publish the results to everyone with root causes and a plan to fix them. The aim is to raise and standardise the quality of operations, not to police people. The role needs someone who can walk in, learn the operation fast, and start producing credible audit reports quickly.

How the Audit Works

The audit method the Head will set up and run (illustrative; the Head will finalise the methodology with leadership):

• Understand the process

  map each function's end-to-end process, the systems it uses, the people involved, and where student outcomes can go wrong

• Identify critical transactions

  decide which transactions carry the most student, financial, compliance, or reputational impact in each function, and rank them by risk

• Set the standard

  — agree with each function what "done correctly" means for every critical transaction — documented steps, turnaround times, evidence required — before auditing against it

• Sample at random, on a fixed basis

  — draw random samples of transactions per function, per campus, and per period, with sample sizes and frequency set by risk and volume — for example, weekly for high-volume or high-risk transactions and monthly or quarterly for others

• Audit and evidence

  — check each sampled transaction against the standard, collect evidence, and rate the result

• Report to everyone

  — publish audit reports to function heads and leadership: scores, findings by severity, trends, root causes, and repeat issues

• Fix and re-check

  — agree corrective actions with owners and due dates, track them to closure, and re-audit to confirm the fix worked

Key Responsibilities

• Process understanding

  — learn how every function in the student lifecycle works — onboarding, programme operations, instruction, curricular content and assessments, student and parent relationship, CX, co-curricular programmes and their assessments (GRIT, BRAVE, MINT, and others), extra-curricular activity, placements and internships, university partnerships, facilities — and keep process maps current

• Audit universe and criticality

  — build the list of everything that can be audited, identify the critical transactions in each function, and rate them by risk; review it each year, and extend it as new functions are added

• Audit plan

  — decide what will be audited, how often, how many samples, and by whom; publish an annual and quarterly audit calendar and keep to it

• Sampling methodology

  — design statistically sound random sampling — risk-based, spread across campuses, and sized for confidence — and draw samples directly from source systems so that functions cannot choose what is looked at

• Standards and checklists

  — work with every function head to document the standard for each critical transaction, and turn it into an audit checklist with a clear scoring method

• Audit execution and quality

  — direct the executives' fieldwork and desk reviews, review working papers, and keep audit quality high — consistent scoring across auditors and campuses, fair findings, and evidence for every conclusion

• Audit reporting

  — prepare and share regular audit reports with all functions and leadership — scorecards by function and campus, findings by severity, trends over time, and root-cause analysis — with a plan, not just a list of faults

• Corrective action tracking

  — agree actions and owners with function heads, track closure, verify the fix, and escalate when actions are late or issues repeat

• Standardisation of operations

  — turn audit findings into better standard operating processes, controls, and training, working with the function heads so processes are the same at every campus

• Monitoring and analytics

  — build dashboards and data checks from the source systems so that critical transactions can be monitored continuously, and manual audit is saved for what needs judgement

• Governance and independence

  — keep the audit function independent, confidential, and fair; set ground rules for access to data, timelines for responses, and escalation of serious findings (such as misconduct, fee leakage, or student safety) to leadership

• Team leadership

  — hire, train, and manage the Quality & Audit Executives — assign functions and campuses, set targets, calibrate their scoring, and develop them

• Stakeholder management

  — work with function heads as partners: explain what is being audited and why, take their input on standards, and make sure audit is seen as help in raising quality

• Reporting to leadership

  — present the overall quality position of operations to leadership at fixed intervals, with risks, trends, and recommendations

Audit Universe — Illustrative

Examples of the critical transactions that may be audited in each function. The Head will decide the final list after studying each process, and further functions will be added to the audit universe going forward:

• Program Ops

  — class scheduling and changes, attendance capture, assessment conduct, result publication and revisions

• Instructors / Academics

  — session delivery against plan, content adherence, doubt-resolution turnaround, evaluation and feedback quality

• Student Relationship

  — follow-up on at-risk students, issue resolution and escalation, record-keeping of student interactions

• Parent Relationship

  — communication cadence, accuracy of updates, resolution of parent concerns

• CX

  — ticket closure turnaround, quality of resolution, reopen rate, escalation handling

• Curricular Content and Assessments

  — accuracy and version control of course content, assessment paper setting and approval, assessment conduct, evaluation consistency, result publication and revisions

• Co-Curricular Programs and Assessments

  — GRIT test cadence, conduct, scoring, and results feeding internship readiness; BRAVE project guidelines, approvals, and closure records; MINT project allocation, progress, and completion records; workshop and hackathon execution against the playbook; participation recording

• Extra-Curricular and Clubs

  — club elections, charter and budget use, event approvals

• Placements and Internships

  — interview and resume preparation tracking, student status updates, offer and internship records

• University Partnerships and Facilities

  — commitments made versus delivered, on-campus infrastructure and facilities standards

• Cross-cutting

  — fee and campus-entry policy compliance, incident reporting and escalation protocol, data and record accuracy

Quick Wins

What the role is expected to deliver early on (illustrative):

• Study each function's process quickly and list the critical transactions for the first audit cycle
• Agree the first set of standards and checklists with function heads
• Fix the sampling method and the audit calendar, and run the first round of audits across all functions
• Publish the first audit report to all function heads and leadership, with findings, root causes, and an action plan
• Set up the tracking of corrective actions and a simple audit dashboard