HEC confirms closure of 450 MS, MPhil, PhD programmes

• Dr Mukhtar says HEC starts sub-campuses of universities in each district

ISLAMABAD: Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed has vowed that the higher education body follows a policy of no-compromise on quality of education due to which HEC has closed down 450 MS, MPhil and PhD programmes for not fulfilling the set criteria.

He was briefing Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training Secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani on the functions, powers, initiatives and achievements of HEC since its inception in 2002 during a meeting here on Friday.

The meeting was also attended by HEC Executive Director Dr Arshad Ali and senior management of the commission. Dr Mukhtar said that the HEC, earlier used to be the University Grants Commission, was initially tasked to improve equitable access to the higher education, ensure quality, and relevance of research to the country’s needs.

He said that Pakistan had only 59 universities before 2002, while gross enrolment was only 2.6 per cent. He maintained that the number of PhDs at that time was only 3,110 and only 800 research publications could surface from Pakistan. He said the number of universities has now reached 188, whereas the gross enrolment was currently nine per cent.

He said that the country presently has 11,960 PhDs and the female enrolment has increased from 32 per cent in 2002 to 48 per cent in 2017. He said that various HEC divisions including accreditation and attestation, human resource development, research and development, travel grants, academics, quality assurance, administration and coordination, information technology and planning and development perform their respective assignments with professional efficiency and dedication.

He said that HEC spends 41 per cent of its total funding on human resource development, 33 per cent on improving access, 23 per cent on learning and research support initiatives, and four per cent on other allied academic activities. He said that HEC has started establishing sub-campuses of the universities in each district.

He also pointed out that 67 districts including 27 districts of Balochistan, six districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, seven districts of Punjab, 10 districts of Sindh, two districts of Azad Jammu Kashmir, seven districts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, eight districts of Gilgit-Baltistan do not have any university sub-campus.

He said that the initiative would cover 21 districts in the first phase and 34 districts in the second phase. He said that owing to its policies, HEC has consecutively worn Global Good Governance (3-G) Award in 2016 and 2017. Pakistan has one of the best ICT infrastructures of Asia, he said.

Dr Mukhtar said that HEC has set up a Cloud Data Centre, while connecting universities across the country through Pakistan Education and Research Network (PERN). He said that HEC has established the Education Testing Council to conduct free, standardised entry tests for admission in the universities.

He said that HEC has so far awarded over 270000 scholarships to Pakistani students, as the award of the scholarships has cast a very positive socio-economic impact. “The major issues the higher education sector is confronted with include governance in higher education institutions and quality of education,” he said.

On the occasion, Akbar Durrani assured HEC of his ministry’s full support to its programmes and policies. He stressed the need for strict action against institutions operating illegally and running academic programmes without fulfilling the HEC criteria. He urged the universities to ensure administrative control apart from focusing on quality of pedagogy.