Tag: Devolution

FAISALABAD - Hundreds of students and teachers from the Government College University (GCU) Faisalabad protested against the devolution of Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC) to the provinces. The students carrying placards and banners were demanding the reversal of the decision which, according to them, is likely to split the whole education system into pieces.
They also threatened to initiate a long march to Islamabad if the decision was not reverted. "This is a wrong

ISLAMABAD - Expressing serious concerns about the future of higher education in Pakistan if the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was devolved, the Vice-Chancellors (VCs) Committee representing all 133 public and private universities in the country decided on Thursday to write a letter to the primer minister and president to intervene in the proposed devolution of the HEC to the provincial level.
The decision was taken at HEC headquarters in an emergency meeting of VCs. The

LAHORE - Students, faculty members and educationists condemned the proposed devolution of Higher Education Commission (HEC) and said that a mafia at public sector universities damaged the quality of HEC and forced the government to think about its devolution.
Students said that public sector universities had become a hub of academic corruption and HEC did not bother to stop professors who were looting the government's money. Students also said that government should not devolve

ISLAMABAD - In order to press the government not to devolve the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to the provinces, vice chancellors from across the country will assemble on Thursday at HEC headquarters to show solidarity against the decision.
A senior official at HEC said more than 30 VCs of private and public sector universities would be gathering at HEC, to evolve a joint strategy to avert the commission's potential devolution in the name of implementation of the 18th

ISLAMABAD - Following local students, civil society and intellectuals' opposition to the devolution of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to provinces, PhD scholars studying at the Oxford University have initiated efforts to avert the proposed devolution and expressed concern in their letter addressed to the Pakistan's High Commission in London.
Seventeen HEC PhD scholars at Oxford and Oxford Pakistan Society on Monday wrote a letter to High Commissioner Syed Wajid Shamsul

ISLAMABAD - Federal Minister for Inter- Provincial Coordination and Chairman of Implementation Commission on 18th Amendment, Mian Raza Rabbani on Monday lost his temper while defending devolution of Higher Education Commission (HEC) to provinces. During the question-hour session in Senate, he threw his notes on the table, while responding to questions raised by senators including Azam Swati, Dr Khalid
Mahmood Soomro, Wasim Sajjad,Javid Ali Shah, Haji Adil and former education

ISLAMABAD - Setting aside objections raised by the Registrar's Office, the Supreme Court on Monday accepted for regular hearing a petition against the devolution of the federal Ministry of Education to the provinces under the 18th Amendment and issued notices to the parties concerned. The petition was filed by senior educationists Chaudhry Sadiq Ali, former director of Model Colleges (Islamabad), and Dr Abdul Razzaque Memon, former principal of Dawood College of Engineering and

ISLAMABAD - The implementation commission on 18th Constitutional Amendment on Saturday gave approval to the transfer of five more ministries to the provinces in the second phase of the devolution plan.
However, the federal cabinet would give a final approval to the devolution of the ministries in its upcoming meeting, following which the ministries along with their subsidiary departments would be transferred to the provinces by March 30.
Members of the commission and the

ISLAMABAD - The second phase of ministries' devolution will be completed by March 30 in which other five ministries are planned to be devolved to the provinces under 18th amendment, said Establishment Division secretary on Thursday. "We are hopeful that the second phase of devolution will be completed by March 30 and, in this connection, a meeting will be held on March 26 to finalise all formalities," said Secretary Abdur Rauf Chaudhry while briefing Senate Standing Committee on

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan ranks sixth globally among 22 high disease burden countries with 0.7 million cases of tuberculosis. Studies show government's failure to curb spread of TB as over 400,000 new cases are reported every year. World Tuberculosis Day is being marked today (on 24 March), with the aim to build public awareness about the epidemic of tuberculosis and efforts to eliminate the disease. Today tuberculosis causes the deaths of about 1.6 million people each year. In Pakistan

ISLAMABAD - The Implementation Commission on the 18th Amendment Monday suffered another blow when the Rabbani-led commission missed another deadline of March 21 set for the second phase of devolution of five ministries to the federating units because of the procedural delays and lack of cooperation by the provinces and the Finance Ministry.
The commission, which held a meeting with Mian Raza Rabbani in the chair at the Cabinet Division, was informed by the provincial chief

ISLAMABAD - The Implementation Commission for the 18th Amendment suffered another blow on Tuesday when the lack of cooperation from the four provinces made the commission, led by Inter-provincial Coordination Minister Raza Rabbani, miss the March 15 deadline set for the second phase of devolution of another five ministries.
The commission, which met here with Rabbani in the chair, was told by the provincial chief secretaries that the provincial governments would not be able to

ISLAMABAD - The devolution of the Ministry of Labour and Manpower will hit the poor labourers and the employees of the lower grades of smaller provinces, an official source told Pakistan Today.
"Several issues were not analyzed properly before the introduction of the 18th Amendment. For example, most of the revenue of the Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) is generated from Sindh and Punjab but larger part of the revenue goes to the small provinces of Balochistan and

ISLAMABAD - The Ministry of Health is engaged in formulating a new drugs pricing policy whereas the fate of Drugs Registration Authority (DRA) and Drug Control Organisation (DCO), the two major bodies meant to implement it, is hanging in balance after the devolution of the ministry to the provinces. The Ministry of Health a few days back had proudly announced that the country would soon have new drug pricing policy which was being formulated in consultation with all the stakeholders

ISLAMABAD - The Implementation Commission for the 18th Amendment set a deadline on Thursday to transfer five more ministries to the provinces in the second phase of the devolution process and decided that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) would not be transferred to the provinces. The commission, which met here with Mian Raza Rabbani in the chair, set March 15 as the deadline to transfer the ministries of education, culture, tourism, livestock and special people to the provinces.

ISLAMABAD - Due to a lack of interest of several members of the implementation commission on the 18th Amendment and uncooperative behaviour of the provinces, the commission is set to miss the deadline for the completion of the process of devolution of ministries to the provinces.
The lack of interest by the members of the commission could only be gauged by the fact that only three of the nine members attended Tuesday's meeting. "Only Raza Rabbani, Rehmatullah Kakar and Naveed

ISLAMABAD - With the devolution of Ministry of Environment to the provincial level from the federal, the fate of the Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (PEPA) and its Central Laboratory for Environmental Analysis (CLEAN) is hanging in the balance. Despite being equipped with computerised analytical equipment, the PEPA laboratory has been dysfunctional for a long time because of a lack of ownership and interest by the relevant ministry and unavailability of qualified staff. PEPA,