Devolving education: Sindh ready for its own HEC: Minister

Says educational opportunities would be distributed more equally now.

KARACHI:

The devolution of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) would ensure equal distribution of educational opportunities, said Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq on Thursday.

“Out of more than 10,000 national and international scholarships given by the HEC so far, only 892 students were from Sindh,” he said.

The number of students from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa was twice as high while the rest of the 8,000 scholarships were given to the young men and women of Punjab, stated a press release issued by the education department.

Haq argued that education was basically a provincial subject that had been kept on the Concurrent list for 10 years in the 1973 Constitution. The current decision to devolve the HEC is in accordance with the Constitution.

“It is a democratic step, bestowing autonomy to the provinces. It should be appreciated rather than criticised,” he said.

He accused the HEC and its former chairman, Dr Attaur Rehman, of being “products of a dictatorship”. The commission was formed in General Pervez Musharraf’s tenure to replace the University Grants Commission. Its main purpose was to distribute federal funds to all four provinces, to monitor development projects and distribute the national and international scholarships to students of all the provinces equally.

Doubting the ability of provinces to effectively carry out the HEC’s functions is just propaganda by the media and a few pragmatists, he said.

The minister said that international aid will not be stopped, following this decision nor will the autonomy of public universities be compromised. The HEC’s quality assurance and degree equivalence issues will remain with the centre and will be looked after by the cabinet division.

The commission’s work can also be judged by the fact that a committee comprising justices Haziqul Khairi and Saleem Akhtar exposed PhD degrees of three chairmen of the Karachi University as fake. Haq said the commission would be run more efficiently by the provinces.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th,  2011.