The 7th meeting of the HEC Committee on the Development of Social Sciences and Humanities was held at the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Secretariat, Islamabad. Dr Ishrat Husain, Director, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi chaired the meeting.
He emphasised that strengthening of Social Sciences is vital for socio-economic development of the country. He lauded the efforts of HEC for initiating a number of projects and programmes for faculty and institutional development, human resource development and promotion of research culture in Social Sciences and Humanities.
"These steps will be quite helpful in bringing Social Sciences at par with other disciplines", he stressed. While, discussing new ideas and proposals, the Committee recommended that Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Pakistan should be revived to cater to the growing needs of faculty and institutional development in these disciplines.
Dr Riaz-ul-Haq Tariq, member (academics) HEC informed the participants about development on previous meeting's decision related to HEC recognised journals, HEC approved supervisor, development of database of external evaluators and launching English course for MPhil/PhD students are being followed.
The Chairmen of the sub-committees on Urdu and Regional Languages, Database of Social Science Departments, Psychology, Education, Law and Statistics presented various recommendations for promotion of research and faculty development in their respective disciplines.
The Committee was briefed by the Chairman of Sub-committee on Improvement of NTS Test about progress on standardisation of present format of the test. After discussion over the recommendations of the Sub-committees, it was decided that the departments in Pakistani universities, which are fulfilling the HEC PhD criteria in Urdu and regional languages would be considered on international standards.
In this regard, the Sub-committee on Urdu and Regional Languages would identify such departments, which would also be considered for Post-Doctorates studies. The Committee appreciated the decision of the Sub-committee that National Language Authority (NLA) would provide indexing and abstracting service for the journals in the discipline of Urdu, Persian and Pakistani languages.
Each sub-committee was asked to prepare list of international experts for evaluation of MPhil and PhD thesis. This information will be uploaded on HEC website. The Committee decided that uniform HEC approved supervisor criteria should be followed for all disciplines of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Emphasis was laid on inter-university and inter-disciplinary research on important socio-economic issues of the country. After reviewing the existing criteria for HEC recognised journals, the Committee recommended that at least 50 per cent composition of editorial board for HEC recognised journals should be from academically advanced countries.
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