The Senate Standing Committee on Education on Wednesday pointed out a number of loopholes in a cabinet-approved criteria for granting charter to private universities and recommended what it called unavoidable amendments to make it more flexible and practicable.
Presided over by its chairperson Senator Rozina Alam Khan here, the committee also recommended that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) must also fund private universities along with those in the public sector.
The HEC Chairman Dr Attaur Rehman agreed to the recommendations of the panel after what a member conceived a visible reluctance.
Dr Atta's argument was that any move to ease these criteria would let the private sector universities ruin the standards set by the Commission and will thus hurt its ultimate objective of bringing these institutions on par with those in the developed countries.
When contacted after the meeting, Senator Rozina told this correspondent that the committee had observed that the criteria for granting charter to private higher learning institutions which a caretaker cabinet approved way back in 2001 were rigid and needed to be looked into.
"That's why," the committee chairman added, "we have recommended amendments in it in the light of the findings of a sub-committee, especially constituted for the same purpose some four months ago."
She said the sub-committee had visited various private universities in all the four provinces and came up with its recommendations prepared with the consultations of all the stakeholders.
About the major amendments the committee approved in the criterion, Senator Rozina said one was the condition of having 10 acres of land at a single site (campus).
Keeping in mind the skyrocketing prices of land in the big cities, she said, the committee had recommended that the charter should be granted to an institution even if it had 10 acres land at more than one site in a city.
Similarly, the committee had also recommended altering the condition of having Rs 50 million in the form of cash for the establishment of a university in the private sector, the Senator said.
"Though we haven't suggested to abolish this condition altogether, yet we have asked the HEC to allow these institutions to keep this much amount in the form of investment like labs and buildings," she said.
Meanwhile a statement issued here said Dr Rehman informed the committee that the country was lacking Ph.Ds in various disciplines and efforts are underway to produce large number of doctors in Pakistan by launching various scholarship schemes.
He further informed the committee that private universities had been given a cut of date of the year 2007 to have the required number of Ph.Ds in their various departments for which the criterion had been laid down by the HEC, it added.
The members of the committee were satisfied to learn that a comprehensive plan had been prepared on their recommendations to extend financial support in the field of research, land acquisition and foreign faculty hiring etc to the private institutes.
The committee was also informed that four different categories had been evolved for categorisation of universities and institutions.
It was also informed that ranking of the institutes of higher learning in the private sector would also be made and data was being collected from the universities.
Regarding National Testing Service Examination, the committee was informed that it had been established to provide credible, technically appropriate system of evaluation for students of various educational institutions at various levels.
It was stated that GRE type test had been introduced to evaluate the ability of students on the standardised criterion apart from their academic performance.
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