EDITORIAL: The grant of charters to two private universities by the Punjab’s Provincial Assembly (PA) on Friday clearly explains how tenuously hangs the survival of the Buzdar government by a PML-Q thread. Without following the required rules and regulations, the private members’ bills were presented and passed the same day by the Punjab Assembly in the absence of any input of the relevant house committee. On March 9, three such charters were granted. Out of these five private universities’ bills, four were of the PML-Q members. Then too the education minister, Raja Yassir Humayun Sarfraz, had opposed the process and threatened to resign. But when he sought intervention of the Prime Minister he was advised to discuss the issue with the assembly speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Ilahi. It is not the first time that as a coalition partner, without whose support the Buzdar government cannot last, the PML-Q succeeded in having what remains a distant dream for nearly all the PTI members. If this is democracy then we are certainly in for more such surprises.
The bills were presented as private members’ bills, but they did not walk through legislative rough terrains. Moreover, provincial Education Department and Higher Education Commission were not taken into the loop. On the ground there is an elaborate process any request for grant of university charter has to go through. According to the Procedure for Establishment of a New University or an Institution in Private Sector 2006, any sponsoring body can apply for charter of university by submitting to the Higher Education Department (HED), Government of Punjab or Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) with a draft of Rs 100,000. The department scrutinizes the application, sends the case to the accreditation committee and submits the report to the commission after physically examining the site. The PHEC returns the case to the department with its recommendations that sends it to the chief minister for permission to submit it to a cabinet committee. The committee then sends the case to the law department for vetting that forwards it to the HED. The HED forwards the case to the cabinet for approval to introduce the bill in the assembly. Of course a private member’s bill for legislation can avoid the given procedure, but even then it is to be looked into by the standing committee on higher education. But all these processes were bypassed and the private members’ bills for grant of charter of two private universities were passed. According to a newspaper report, the PML-Q MPAs submitted the bills in order to favour the owners of these universities.
Punjab Education Minister Raja Yassir Sarfraz has claimed that these private universities exist only on paper. They have no campuses, but have started giving admission to candidates. Obviously, such universities will only contribute to the proliferation of substandard institutions. Moreover, the product of these universities could be only underemployed in the highly competitive job market. That the substandard educational institutions cannot fill up the vacancies with qualified competent teachers is a fact. The ruling party leadership may strike as many unsavoury deals with the PML-Q as it needs but not in the field of education – after all, educated and skilled manpower is Pakistan’s most critical bet. It should not be bartered away for temporary political gains.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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