Islamabad - Secretary Federal Education on Friday urged Higher Education Commission (HEC) to take strict action against institutions operating without fulfilling the required criteria, said an official.
The statement issued said that Secretary Federal Education Akbar Hussain Durrani paid a visit to HEC where he was briefed about the performance of the higher education regulator.
Federal secretary assured HEC of his ministry’s support to its program and policies. He stressed the need for strict action against institutions operating illegally and running academic programs without fulfilling HEC criteria.
He urged the universities to ensure administrative control apart from focusing on quality of pedagogy. He stated that teachers have a great role in nation building, so they have great responsibilities on their shoulders.
Teachers must be honest and not become a commodity, he emphasized. He urged people associated with academia to forge professionalism and sincerity to their job. “People sincere to their professions are always sincere to their institutions,” he underlined.
Chairman HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, shared the background of HEC establishment and said that HEC, being a University Grants Commission, was initially tasked to improve equitable access to higher education, ensure quality, and relevance of research to the country’s needs.
He added that HEC took a number of measures to accomplish its targets.
He highlighted that Pakistan had only 59 universities before 2002, while gross enrolment was only 2.6 per cent. He maintained that the number of PhDs at that time was only 3,110 and only 800 research publications could surface from Pakistan.
He revealed that the number of universities has now reached 188, whereas the gross enrolment is currently nine per cent. He revealed that the country presently has 11,960 PhDs. He informed the Secretary that the female enrolment has increased from 32 per cent in 2002 to 48 per cent in 2017.
Dr. Mukhtar informed the Secretary that the number of publications annually has now reached 12000, while research conducted by Pakistani students has earned remarkable acknowledgment nationally and internationally. He said Thompson Reuters has recently released a report highlighting Pakistan as a country with highest percentage of highly cited papers as compared to Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed asserted that HEC follows a policy of no-compromise on quality of education. “HEC has closed down 450 MS, MPhil and PhD programs for not fulfilling the set criteria,” he informed. He said that owing to its policies, HEC has consecutively worn Global Good Governance (3-G) Award in 2016 and 2017.
The Chairman also informed the Secretary about various other endeavours of HEC pertaining to research and development, award of travel grants to research scholars, faculty development programs, and development of National Qualifications Framework.