PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Minister for Higher Education Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani Wednesday told the provincial assembly that the government is going to establish an independent and autonomous provincial higher education council (PHEC) to look after the affairs of the public sector universities in the province.
He was responding to a question of Mufti Fazal Ghafoor of JUI-F regarding the quality of education in the public sector universities of KP.
Maulana Fazal Ghafoor had questioned that the ranking of the universities was on the decline, saying that in the ranking announced in 2006, University of Peshawar (UoP) was fourth among the universities of the country while in 2014, it declined to the sixth spot while in the recent ranking, it went down to 13.
The opposition legislator lamented that on one hand, the standard of education in the universities was deteriorating while on the other, the difference between the fees of public and private sector universities was nearing each other.
However, Mushtaq Ghani, instead of accepting the responsibility of the situation, held the administration of universities responsible for. He said that as the public sector universities are getting funds through Higher Education Commission (HEC), they are responsible only to it.
Therefore, he said that the KP government had decided the establishment of PHEC. He added that after the establishment, the provincial government will provide funds to universities through it and will also be responsible for the financial and quality audit.
Similarly, in response to the question of Meraj Hamayun Khan, the provincial minister for higher education said that that four-year BS programme had been introduced in 100 colleges of the province and would be extended to the remaining 120 colleges next year.