diff --git a/.github/workflows/python-publish.yml b/.github/workflows/python-publish.yml
index 6e4ac7e98..961832a5f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/python-publish.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/python-publish.yml
@@ -30,8 +30,9 @@ jobs:
     - name: Install dependencies
       run: |
         python -m pip install --upgrade pip
-        pip install --upgrade setuptools
-        pip install --upgrade build
+        pip install --upgrade setuptools setuptools_scm[toml] build 
+    - name: get setuptools-scm version 
+      run: python -m setuptools_scm
     - name: Build package
       run: python -m build
     - name: Publish package
diff --git a/ragas/exceptions.py b/ragas/exceptions.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..3c631c3ec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ragas/exceptions.py
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+
+class RagasException(Exception):
+    """
+    Base exception class for ragas.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, message: str):
+        self.message = message
+        super().__init__(message)
diff --git a/ragas/metrics/factual.py b/ragas/metrics/factual.py
index eb944b523..82cbfb79e 100644
--- a/ragas/metrics/factual.py
+++ b/ragas/metrics/factual.py
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
     PreTrainedModel,
 )
 
+from ragas.exceptions import RagasException
 from ragas.metrics import Metric
 from ragas.utils import device_check
 
@@ -209,12 +210,16 @@ class Qsquare(Metric):
     include_nouns: bool = True
     save_results: bool = False
 
-    def __post_init__(
-        self,
-    ):
-        self.nlp = spacy.load(SPACY_MODEL)
+    def __post_init__(self):
         self.qa = QAGQ.from_pretrained(self.qa_model_name)
         self.qg = QAGQ.from_pretrained(self.qg_model_name)
+        try:
+            self.nlp = spacy.load(SPACY_MODEL)
+        except OSError:
+            raise RagasException(
+                f"Spacy model [{SPACY_MODEL}] not found. Please run "
+                "`python -m spacy download {SPACY_MODEL}` to install it."
+            )
 
     @property
     def name(self):