ISLAMABAD:Chairman, Higher Education Commission (HEC) Dr Mukhtar Ahmad has reiterated his commitment to take stringent measures for improving the quality education in universities by further improving the HEC performance, while taking all stakeholders on board.
Talking to media, Chairman said that since establishment of HEC, we had achieved many goals while many challenges were ahead to do more for the higher education sector of Pakistan.
He said that all relevant stakeholders had been taken on-board to review the previous performance and lacking in HEC policies, adding, stringent measures would be taken to take HEC ad affiliated universities at par with international standards.
Talking about the quality education, he said that “we will set the HEC direction and would formulate polices that would work for our future generations” he added. Dr Mukhtar vowed to set the goals for HEC that would be achieved till 2050. He said that HEC officials, the leadership (faculty, staff) and students of all public and private sector universities are playing their due role in achieving the educational goals.
Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC), has also informed the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Professional Training that in the last short period, various provincial assemblies have approved the charters of more than 15 new private sector universities. The quality education is being compromised by establishing of private sector universities in the provinces without planning, he lamented.
He told the body that by establishing these new institutions, the provinces not only fulfilling the council formalities but also compromised on the regulations set by the Higher Education Commission for the establishment of new universities.
Today, the higher education sector has lower budget than in 2017-18. At a time when large public sector universities are facing salary shortages, the provincial governments are also failing to provide financial grants to the institutions approved by them, he added.
According to him, currently only one percent of the total GDP is allocated for the education sector, therefore, in such situation, the federal government cannot ensure the supply of funds to the provincial chartered universities.
There are some universities in the provinces whose records are not available even with HEC, the sources disclosed and informed that Baba Gurnanak University is also one of them, he added.