ISLAMABAD – Senator Raza Rabbani-led Implementation Commission on the 18th Amendment is bent upon wiping out all the good work done by the previous government vis-a-vis higher education.
Talking to a private TV channel, HEC Chairman Dr Javaid Leghari said in the wake of the proposed devolution plan, the US had halted funding to the tune of $250 million that it had promised for foreign studies and research work for HEC scholars. Leghari said a US embassy official had informed him about the development on Monday.
Meanwhile, the US embassy official said it would not be possible for the embassy to maintain relations with every province. Leghari said due to the current uncertainty regarding the HEC’s fate, the World Bank had already indicated stopping $300 million which it had recently approved for HEC. He said that the country would go back 10 years if funding to the HEC was stopped.
“We have been told that the HEC has been devolved. The devolution will lead to a halt in research work which will result in the stoppage of investment of billions of rupees to the country,” he said. The HEC showed record turnaround in the higher education sector in mere past seven years, as it has sponsored PhD degree programmes for 7,500 students, of which 3,500 are in foreign countries and 4,000 in local universities.
Currently, 700 PhD degrees are being awarded as against 200 in the recent past and the number would soon increase to 1,000 in two years. A source told Pakistan Today on Monday that one reason for devolving the HEC to the provinces could be that this would help the government not implement the Supreme Court’s verdicts on the fake-degree holding parliamentarians.
“In its judgement, the Supreme Court had directed the government to get the certificates and degrees of all parliamentarians verified by the HEC. Now if there is no HEC, the government would have no need to implement the SC verdict,” added the source. He said that the government was also dismembering the HEC which would mean that from now on neither the provinces nor the HEC would be able to get funds allocated to the HEC.
“They have also decided to give the subject of degree-verification to the Cabinet Division – clearly hinting their intentions while the federal universities are being handed down to the ICT and the foreign scholarships are being given to the Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination -run by Raza Rabbani himself which reflect the real plans behind the devolution,” the source claimed.
Leghari said the HEC had nothing to do with the 18th Amendment, adding that rather the commission had been protected from the devolution plan by the amendment. “The HEC is not a part of the concurrent list, it is a part of the federal list which has nothing to do with the devolution. Moreover, the members of the parliamentary committee on constitutional reforms had informed me that the HEC had been protected from the devolution and this is in black and white,” he said.
He said that around 1,000 research programmes would be affected due to the decision. “I think most of the officials dealing with the devolution plan don’t know what subjects we deal with and what matters we look after from conceiving a project to its maturity,” he added. Asked whether the lust for funds of Rs 40 billion was a major source of interest to the provinces behind the devolution plan, Leghari said it was a pity that the provinces would also not be able to get the HEC funds and rather the federal government would keep these funds.
“The only mode of transfer of funds from federation to the provinces is the national finance commission (NFC). Since the HEC’s funds have nothing to do with the NFC, the provinces would not be able to get these funds,” he said. One could easily judge the prejudice the ruling government ministers have for Pakistani scholar and former HEC chairman Dr Attaur Rehman when at a recent moot, Rabbani stunned everyone by asking, “Who is Dr Attaur Rehman?”
When informed of Dr Atta’s achievements, Rabbani said, “He is one of the ‘prophets of the doom’ who have been practicing the politicians of centrism. He was involved in rejecting the rights to provinces. He also labelled as traitors all those political workers who raised voice for democracy.”
