LAHORE: It is the federal government’s responsibility to provide adequate funding to universities for raising the quality of higher education at par with international standards, Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) Chairperson Rukhsana Zuberi said on Monday.
She made these remarks while addressing the inaugural session of the 3rd International Conference on “Assessing Quality in Higher Education” at the Punjab University (PU) Law College Auditorium. PU Vice Chancellor Dr Mujahid Kamran, Higher Education Commission (HEC) National Quality Assurance Committee Chairman Dr Abdul Rauf, National Textile University Faisalabad Rector Professor Niaz Ahmad, University of Management and Technology (UMT) Rector Hassan Sohaib Murad and Institute of Quality & Technology Management (IQTM) Director Aamir Ijaz also spoke on the occasion while a large number of leading academicians, scholars, delegates from foreign and local varsities, senior faculty members and students were also present on the occasion.
Zuberi observed that keeping in view the ongoing economic crisis, our varsities should also play the role of entrepreneurs for generating funds. She commended the organisers for successfully holding the conference despite multi-faceted problems, natural disasters and the present economic meltdown.
She said that PEC had accepted recommendations of previous international conferences on enhancing quality in higher education. Zuberi also offered her full support to Dr Kamran for launching an energy conservation project at the PU. Addressing the audience, Dr Abdul Rauf said that unfortunately, our country did not have enough resources to meet the requirements of the educational sector but academic quality was essential for our survival. Only those graduates would have attractive job opportunities who attain quality education, he said.
Rauf said that in the last few years, the HEC had focused on increasing the number of universities besides improving the quality of university faculty and infrastructure.
He regretted that in the past there was no culture for self-assessment and improvement. But now some of the varsities were even asking the HEC for introducing the quality management system. Rauf said that the credit for the resounding success of all three international conferences goes to the IQTM.
Addressing the conference on behalf of the VCs of four organising universities, Dr Kamran observed that the PU, being the country’s oldest seat of learning had the distinction of hosting all three conferences, which enabled the participants and young graduates to share knowledge and interact with scholars of international repute.
He said that teachers played a crucial role in all educational quality enhancement programmes. Only 22 percent of the faculty of all Pakistani universities was PhD while the PU had a slightly better 33 percent against its total faculty strength, he said.
The PU VC said that without faculty development, we could not expect any qualitative improvement at any level. Dr Kamran told the audience that it was regrettable that neither any previous government had enhanced the role of education in nation-building nor gave it priority, which it deserved, as an absolute necessity for the country’s survival. Currently only two percent of the GDP was being allocated for education and even that was not fully spent, he said.
In such a situation what quality could we expect to have from our academic institutions? Despite this Pakistan had managed to become the first nuclear power of the Islamic world. With proper coaching and guidance, students could excel in any field, he added. Afterwards, Zuberi and Dr Kamran gave away shields to the participants of the conference.
