A meeting between officials of the Higher Education Commission, World Bank and the Ministry of Finance has been cancelled after the release of fund by the Finance Ministry to HEC, but the delay in release of funds is impacting the Tertiary Education Support Project (TESP) financed by the Bank, it was learnt. Sources said that the meeting was actually scheduled for first week of September to discuss the delay in release of funds to HEC. They said that no new date was fixed for the meeting.
"The Ministry of Finance has just released Rs 3.12 billion to the HEC under the development fund for 2012-13. The Commission has already received Rs 6 billion under the recurrent fund allocated for the very first quarter of the current fiscal year. As a principle, HEC has to receive 20 percent of its overall amount allocated in the federal budget in the first quarter and the Commission has received this amount before the end of the first quarter of 2012-13," sources added
According to official statistics, only 7.8 percent of Pakistan's total population in the age group of 17-23 years has access to higher education. The Education Policy 2009 stipulates raising it to 10% by 2015 and 15% by 2020. Under the agreement of Tertiary Education Support Project (TESP) between HEC and the World Bank, the federal government had to allocate Rs 36.2 billion as recurring budget and Rs 21.6 billion as development budget for 2012-13, but only Rs 32.7 billion as recurrent budget and Rs 14.5 billion as development budget was allocated for the current fiscal year by the government that is Rs 10.5 billion (18 percent) less then the amount committed under the agreement.
Sources said that due to delay in release of funds by the Ministry of Finance as per the TESP agreement, the project may face setbacks such as Enrollment Growth Targets as per the Medium-Term Development Framework (MTDF) will be hard to achieve; The quality initiative of hiring new Tenure Track Faculty will be put on halt, as funding space on recurring side provides very little space to accommodate new hiring; .Target for establishment of new offices of research innovation and commercialisation (ORICs) over current and next three years was 30 out of which 15 were performing satisfactorily. The Establishment of ORICs and satisfactory performance of 15 require additional funding from recurring funds for (i) operational costs, and (ii) performance funding based on scorecard system. Available funding space for research program would not allow meeting funds requirement for this new initiative; Quality Enhancement Cells (QECs) in all public sector universities have been established, which are funded from development side. The established QECs and satisfactory performance of 45 ORICs require additional funding from recurring funds for (i) operational costs, and (ii) performance funding. Available funding space at HEC would not allow meeting requirement; the additional requirement of funds for needs-based scholarship is almost 2.5 billion over three years' period. Total increases given on recurring side do not provide any fiscal space for the same. The interest subsidy cost and provision for FLPA [First Loss Participation Account] also requires total outlay of around Rs 400 million over three years' period, which would not be possible, keeping in view the funding.
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