Dawn of a new tenure: Sindh’s ‘Higher Education Commission’

KARACHI – With Islamabad devolving responsibility of educating the people to provincial governments, Sindh is finalising arrangements to establish its Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan Today has learnt. With the devolution of five more ministries – including Education – to the provinces under the 18th Constitutional Amendment, all four provincial governments were supposed to chalk out a comprehensive strategy to ensure continuation in matters that were dealt with by the HEC.
While Sindh’s proposal is premised on the formation of a provincial HEC that will take over all matters of higher education and scholarships, the provincial government is also constituting a task force of educationists that will oversee the entire process. “Sindh Education Secretary Naheed Durrani recently forwarded a list of names to Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq for a task force that will work out the provincial HEC’s structure, functions and laws,” sources told Pakistan Today. “A final approval would be sought from the chief minister within days.”
The names forwarded for the task force include those of former vice-chancellors of public sector universities of Sindh as well as representatives of the business community, sources claimed. The Education Department has also identified a number of government buildings that could be used for establishing offices of Sindh’s HEC, sources said.
Another senior official of the Education Department, talking to Pakistan Today on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the formation of a provincial HEC was in the pipeline but explained that before the devolution of the education ministry, the Sindh government had already worked out a mechanism to take over educational projects and institutions that are being transferred to the province.
“In Sindh’s HEC, there would be four to five wings/divisions, one each to look after grants, academic affairs, administration, and finance. A separate wing is being established to deal with issues of the quality of higher education and scholarships, as the standard of higher education has been clearly mentioned in the Federal Legislative-II which was not abolished during the passage of 18th Amendment,” the official elaborated.
“The Sindh government is presently successfully running over 50,000 primary and secondary schools and at least 260 colleges. If we can run these, how can Sindh not be able to handle 13 universities of the province?” the official rhetorically questioned while referring to a recent statement of the HEC chairman. “Our primary concern is with identifying the right people, those who are highly qualified and able to handle HEC, and those with a commitment to uphold high standards of education,” the official concluded.