Abrupt disbanding of HEC

The decision to disband Higher Education Commission (HEC) was intimated to its Chairman Javed Leghari reportedly by Raza Rabbani chairman of the parliamentary committee that is overseeing the implementation of the devolution of ministries identified in the 18th Amendment.
The question at present is not whether the decision to disband HEC, as per the 18th Amendment passed unanimously by parliament, must be considered sacrosanct given that parliament is supreme but whether this decision should be implemented in the abrupt manner in which it is being done and the effect that it will have on higher education in this country where literacy rates are low and higher education a dream few without resources can realise.
The HEC, formerly known as the University Grants Commission, is the primary regulator of higher education in Pakistan. Its achievements are as follows: (i) establishing a Digital Library enabling students in Pakistan access to 45,000 textbooks and 25,000 international research journals as well as research monographs from 220 international publishers; (ii) tripling university enrolment from 135,000 in the year 2003 to 400,000 in 2008; (iii) Promoting research, resulting in huge expansion of international research publications from Pakistan from only 600 research papers per year in 2003 to 4300 research papers in 2008; (iv) During the 56-year period (1947-2003) not a single Pakistani university could be ranked among the top 600 universities in the world. Today five Pakistani universities are in this category with the National University of Science and Technology standing at a very respectable number 350; (v) Four-year undergraduate programme was introduced to enable international recognition of Pakistani degrees; (vi) About 5000 PhD level scholarships awarded for study in technologically advanced countries (largest programme in the developing world) and some 3,000 indigenous PhD scholarships have been awarded. The world's largest Fulbright Scholarship programme (US $150 million) launched with joint funding (HEC/USAID); and (vii) fifty-one new universities and degree awarding institutes and 18 campuses of existing universities established during (2003-2008).
So why was HEC devolved given its performance? Few would challenge the decision to devolve education to the provinces, however the decision to include higher education in totality in this defies logic. Supporters of a continuing role for HEC point out correctly that the current system envisages the Governor of a province, a symbol of the federation and not the provincial government, as the Chancellor of all state-owned universities. Therefore the decision to disband HEC remains suspect leading to speculations as to the real reason behind this move.
Analysts maintain that the decision to disband HEC is attributable to the role it played in verifying the degrees of parliamentarians - an undertaking the Commission was discharging in an appropriately transparent manner. Now with the imminent disbanding of the HEC the responsibility of degree recognition, equivalence and attestation would be undertaken by a new commission that would work under the Cabinet Division. In other words the system of degree verification would become non-transparent and while many of our parliamentarians would certainly avoid being put on the mat for giving false testimony with respect to their degrees yet what is being ignored is that Pakistani degrees by our scholars may no longer be verifiable abroad that, in turn, may lead to lower number of admissions of Pakistani students to foreign universities.
In case the government insists on disbanding the HEC it must take certain measures to ensure that its successes are replicated. As matters stand today it is clearly evident that the provincial governments simply do not have the capacity to undertake the functions of the HEC. Even if provinces maintain that they can build capacity to undertake these tasks the problem of one province accepting the degree of another would no doubt emerge. It is therefore critical for the government to ensure co-ordination between provinces through establishing an inter-provincial coordination ministry that includes all devolved ministries that has the vision and the expertise to ensure that no devolved sector suffers due to devolution.