Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Friday said the Higher Education Commission (HEC) should serve as a catalyst in promoting quality education in the country. Speaking at a presentation by HEC, the Prime Minister called for adopting a pro-active policy towards higher education and said HEC should link the grant with the performance and achievement of universities and be the centre of excellence.
Higher Education Commission should work on acquiring public private partnership for promotion of research projects, he added.
The Prime Minister said private sector concerned with the research subjects should be co-opted to provide relevant input to make the research objective, practical and productive. He said the HEC should work on single system of examination both in public and private universities.
HEC Chairman Dr Atta ur Rehman briefed the meeting on the objectives, goals and achievements of the Commission.
He observed higher education in the past had not been given due attention, saying the country needed people with Ph D in all disciplines.
While highlighting the goals of HEC, the Chairman said the Commission was focusing on good governance and management of universities, capacity-building of faculties and revising the curricula of universities.
The university education in Pakistan had generally been the duty of public sector but now the government was encouraging civil society and private sector to join hands, he added.
He said HEC was focusing on improving the quality of faculty and was striving to provide facilities for acquiring Ph D level education.
He informed the meeting the Commission had set up digital library with 20,000 journals in different disciplines. The library provided the students access to latest developments, research based knowledge and encouraged research. Dr Atta said HEC was focusing on Nursing School Plan developed by the trained nurses to meet domestic and international demand of nurses.