Minister in-charge of Science and Technology and Chairman Higher Education Commission Dr Atta-ur-Rehman has said that the government is committed to close down all substandard universities which have mushroomed at the cost of quality of education.
He was speaking as chief guest at the Eighth Convocation of Hamdard University at Madinat-Al-Hikmah on Saturday.
He said that all universities in the public and private sectors were given three years to improve upon their standard of teaching and faculty, or close down. "Six months remain at their disposal to improve and come up to the minimum standard laid down for them to improve. If they fail they will have to close down," he added.
Rehman said that the standard of teaching has gone down and the faculties at different universities in the private sector were of a very low standard. "Many of the universities are no more universities; they are just like glorified higher secondary schools or colleges," he remarked.
He said that these institutions have made mockery of higher education and set a trend of commercialism which would be difficult to control if allowed to continue.
He said that the government has a plan to rate the universities. It would be done on the basis of faculty, number of Ph Ds on the staff and enrolled for it. The criteria for evaluation of the universities would be based upon international standard.
Its international partnership, grant, facilities for research and citations in international journals would also be taken into consideration. It would be a regular exercise so that the universities improve their working and produce quality products.
"Five years down the road, things would change," he added.
He said he had been given the task of drawing strategy for an action plan to revamp education sector.
Three expert groups have been formed to do the job. One of the committees would look after the national development plan for education. It would come up with its recommendations and Action Plan by April 2004, and that would be implemented by the next academic year.
"One of the recommendations is about increasing salaries of university teachers. A professor would be in the bracket of Rs 50,000 to Rs 125,000.
Dr Rehman gave an overview of the Islamic world's attitude towards education and technical advancement and said that the priorities of the Islamic world could be seen from the fact that the Arab bloc had allocated 0.2 percent of its GNP towards education and 7 percent towards defence.
In contrast to this situation some of the African countries have gone to the extent of allocating 14 percent of GNP for education sector.
He said the situation in Pakistan was changing and from Rs 800 million allocation for development in education sector previously, the allocation had gone up to Rs 5 billion.
"Next year budget would have Rs 8 billion. The vision is that to have Rs 15 billion for development in education sector in the next five years seems to be achievable," he added.
As usual, he compared some of the statistics pertaining to the number of Ph Ds and scientists and said that Pakistan should learn some lessons from the statistics and gear up it education uplift plan.
He said if Pakistan has to shed its ignorance and poverty, it would have to invest in education. This would call for investment in creative education system and that would be the only solution.
He said that research in a number of fields was yet to be taken up. "Biotechnology and agronomics are the two areas that need immediate attention. These two sciences have done miracles and Pakistan needs some miracles in agriculture and health sectors. These and many other new areas of research will open new vistas in medicine, physics, energy, information technology and agriculture."
Earlier, Chancellor of the University Ajmal Mian in his address said that education was the key to social and economic development of a country. "Human capital theory recognises education as a durable and permanent investment in creation of intangible assets. Education is the principal activity for increasing both quantity and quality of human capital available in a country."
He said that social and private returns to investments in education might be comparable to or even higher than the returns to investment in physical assets.
He said it was sad to note that in the past governments could not assign due priority to education which, in turn, arrested the development.
He said that in the past, public expenditure on education, as percentage of GDP, had not been more than 3 percent while some of the African countries, like Botswana and Namibia, were spending as high as 10.4 percent and 9.1 percent of their GDP on education, respectively.
Ajmal said that general education without having nexus with the requirements of the country was not only unproductive but was a major factor in aggravating the problem of unemployment.
He said, "We in our university have concentrated on job-oriented disciplines based on modern technologies."
He emphasised the need to develop meaningful working partnership between public and private sectors in expediting the process of socio-economic development in a country, provided they are properly managed and monitored by an efficient independent regulatory authority.
As many as 1204 students of the Hamdard University were conferred Ph D, Masters and Bachelor's degrees and post-graduate diplomas. About 444 graduate were conferred degrees in person. They had passed out from various institutes of the University including 24 from Hamdard Institute of Education and Social Sciences, 159 from Hamdard Institute of Management Sciences, 98 from Hamdard College of Medicines and Dentistry and Hamdard Al-Majeed College of Eastern Medicine, 153 from Hamdard Institute of Information Technology, Usman Institute of Technology, Plastic Technology Centre and 10 from Hamdard School of Law. Seven hundred and sixty graduates from all affiliated institutes of the University were awarded degrees in absentia.
Forty-seven graduates were awarded Hamdard University Gold Medals, six received Hakim Mohammad Said Gold Medals for their extraordinary academic performance.
Besides parents of the passing out graduates, a large number of Judges from the superior judiciary, civil servants, military officers, academics and elite of the city attended the convocation.
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