Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC), Dr Tariq Banuri has said that declining standard of higher education and 20 percent cut in budgetary allocation for Higher Education Commission (HEC) have put the future of students at stake, besides squeezing financial resources for universities to meet expenses.
Against the demand of Rs 82 billion, the government allocated Rs 65 billion for higher education, while Pakistan is already spending the lowest i.e. 0.25 percent of the GDP on higher education, said Dr Banuri while addressing his maiden press conference after assuming the charge of the Commission here on Tuesday. The chairman HEC also announced to suspend universities ranking, saying it is not the job of regulator but there are other institutions for such a job.
Expressing serious concern over the quality of education, Dr Banuri said that many stakeholders during meetings have raised the same concern as it is poor. The chairman HEC while admitting that there are several education programmes of low quality on the Commission website, announced to review all universities' programmes and stop those not meeting the standard criteria.
He further resolved to pursue strict policy on plagiarism and spare nobody found involved in such practices as per the policy. There is dire need to scale up training and capacity building of faculty members, future leaderships/students and administration staff. He further said that there is need for better utilization of information technology, as it can help in universities' governance and improve transparency. He said that there is need to consolidate educational database.
The chairman also said that a job portal would be set where HEC/universities would be able to match skill and jobs which would result in decreasing unemployment among highly educated people. The chairman said that he would try to give autonomous status to at least 10 universities by the end of his tenure.
Dr Banuri said that though confusion created after the 18th Constitutional amendment has been overcome to some extent by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) but there is need for a social contract with the government to stop interference in HEC affairs, as without this the Commission would not be able to overcome the challenges.
He also said that federal and provincial HECs have agreed to work for setting and maintaining high standards in the best interest of the country. He further said that students' rights need to be protected. The rights of students must be protected, as they are the primary stakeholders of higher education sector. He maintained that a number of measures have to be taken in this regard e.g. ensuring quality of education and research, capacity building of faculty and imparting practical knowledge to students.
He underlined that the faculty capacity building programmes need a review for further improvement. Training programmes are being planned for university leadership as well as administration so that issues like governance, financial management, human resource development, and additional resource generation can be efficiently addressed, he added. Terming quality of education and research a fundamental goal, he said vice chancellors should ensure students right to quality education wherein they may have interaction opportunities, he added.
"It must be ensured that students are not cheated or defrauded in any way," he emphasized. He explained that substandard and low quality academic programmes initiated by universities in violation of HEC guidelines are also tantamount to cheating students. He said the institutions issuing fake degrees are not only endangering the students' future but also committing injustice to the society. "Exploiting education invites strong regulatory action," he clarified, as HEC gives minimum standards which universities must abide by.
The chairman stressed the importance of information technology to bring efficiency in teaching, research, university governance and administrative as well as financial affairs. He said that a transparent system is to be evolved to consolidate educational database, adding that the universities' financial management systems need to be made transparent. He said that deliberations are underway on developing a job portal to facilitate qualified students in securing jobs.