Pakistan

HEC devolution: Stakeholders to be taken on board, says Rabbani

Rabbani says negative forces are "raising a storm in a tea cup" over the HEC issue.

Express April 18, 2011

ISLAMABAD: Senator Raza Rabbani has said that all stakeholders will be taken on board after the law regarding the Higher Education Commission's (HEC) role and function is framed.

Speaking to the media, Rabbani said that negative forces were "raising a storm in a cup of tea" on the HEC issue which was not acceptable.

The 18th Amendment Implementation Commission met on Monday to discuss the restructuring of the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

The meeting reviewed compliance report of various ministries devolved so far. It also noticed that the center had occupied many important functions which were not present in the concurrent list.

The commission also discussed the third phase of transfer of ministries of sports, environment and women's development.

Sources have said that the new name of for the commission will be Commission for Higher Standard Education. The HEC will be retaining eight of its functions.

The Higher Education Commission is being devolved to the provinces under the 18th amendment plan.

The HEC was created in 2002 and is widely recognised as a highly successful institution that has been able to revitalise higher education in Pakistan through its regulation of standards at public and private universities as well as securing additional funding for universities as well as scholarships for students, both to local and foreign universities.

Nearly 5,000 Pakistani students are currently studying abroad on HEC or HEC-affiliated scholarships. In addition, the HEC finances research and has ensured that academics in Pakistan are well-paid.

COMMENTS (21)

naila | 13 years ago | Reply Much has been said recently on the present government’s reported intention to dissolve the Higher Education Commission (HEC). Its former chairman, Dr Atta-ur-Rahman, has described the government’s plan as a conspiracy to destroy higher education and thus to ruin the country. During the last ten years or so the HEC has set up minimum standards, which the various degree-granting institutions must meet. It is claimed that as a result Pakistani degrees are now being accepted on their face value by universities abroad but it should be noted that the Commission has placed excessive emphasis upon quantification and it has monetized higher education. It invites us to be proud of the fact that its inducements have increased the number of universities, doctoral degree holders, and teaching departments that sponsor and conduct them, manifold. The number of books and articles being written and the journals publishing them have, likewise, multiplied. They are being wholly or partially funded by the Commission. It has disbursed enormous amounts of money to universities and their academic units and it would be no exaggeration to say that they do not always know what to do with it. The Commission has not taken care to ensure that the universities, new and old, and their products attain standards of accomplishment that merit respect. One is entitled to ask if Pakistan would not be better situated with 20 first class universities than with 70, most of which are mediocre. In face we have numerous Ph.d holders but standard of education is very low.. There is no research work, no qualitative approach and no scholars, this is the result of HEC?

Ali | 13 years ago | Reply @Karim: Pleases qualify all of your accusations with links. Which "eminent" acadamic has lambasted the performace of the HEC? How many of this country's academics are pro and how many against the devolution? Where is your list of irregularities? From what I have read and heard about the HEC, it's the most transparent organisation in the entire country in terms funding and where the money is being spent. All of their budget can be traced back to academic salaries, research grants and scholarship fees. Can the same be said for the provincial level education budget? A siginificant portion disappears into ghost schools set up by corrupt bureaucrats in the education department. Yes the HEC does favour engineering/sciences over the social sciences. But that's for a very good reason. Our country needs more and better engineers. scientists. Skill sets like these also attract FDI. No offence but public relations, psychology, media studies etc. These sorts of subjects will not help Pakistan develop and they are not skills that are readily employable.

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Muhammad | 13 years ago | Reply For Mr YBT US has an excellent primary and secondary education network before embarking billions on higher education besides one of the worlds largest manufacturing and research based economies they have the capacity to absorb, what are your PhDs doing after returning back to the country. Can you please identify a few mega research facilities collaborating with large scale industry. As compared to US what is the size of our economy and the R &D sector. As far as the research culture goes that does not come with number of papers that comes with the quality of papers and can quote you one example of QAU which has produced excellent people with with excellent research track record even before the advent of HEC. No one is denying that HEC has done good job in some areas, but the other impression that the excellent research culture prevailing in the country will suffer needs a rectification.

YBT | 13 years ago | Reply Well, another series of lame excuses by Mr. Muhammad. The other day, a stupid senator of ANP was asking about the salary of HEC chairman. The question its self tells you their mentality level and vision. Just answer me one question. Is Harvard University became "Harvard" (the symbol for quality education, innovation, research) on very first day, year , decade. No, it took more than 300 years to reach at this level. US produces more than 5000 PhDs in a year and no one say whether there is a demand for it or not. Because they understand the need of industry-academia relationship through research. So, HEC is not perfect, there may be dozens of flaws but overall its strategy for higher education is highly successful. So with the time the quality of research & Publication both will get improved. Its an evolving process. 2ndly, HEC has the highest rate of return on scholarships and this never happened in the past. If some one has ran away after availing the foreign scholarship, it is his/her commitment to be questioned not HEC. HEC has made public the identities of those who did not full fill their commitment and they are declared absconders from the Govt. of Pakistan.

Asif Ali | 13 years ago | Reply @ybt and Tanveer ok i agree with you that the population of punjab is higher than others, but it doesn't mean that the whole cake should be given to them. secondly the education system of provinces. you said the quality of education in punjab is better than other, it mean, state is only responsible to take care of one province no body cares about others. it indicates, we are still punjabi, sindhi, baloch, pathan no one taking steps to convert this scattered groups into one group called pakistani. i hope you guys understand. .

YBT | 13 years ago | Reply Mr. Asif Ali & Mr. Karim, represent the majority of those people who are unable to visualize the long term impact of this decision. They never understand what it means to have a research culture in the country and an academia & industry relationship. I don't blame them for their less education or short vision. You cannot handle higher education on provincial basis. Its the matter of quality. The function of HEC is to ensure that those who has the intellect & ability will get benefits from the scholarship & funding opportunities without any bias toward their domicile. Punjab is getting a higher percentage because of their better educational institutions ability. If provinces are sincere with their people why are they not upgrading the quality of their higher education Institutions. If NWFP govt. can open universities in Mansehra(Hazara University), Banu, Mardan then why Balochistan and Sindh cannot follow them. Please accept the fact the destruction of HEC is for all the other reasons except to benefit provinces.

amar | 13 years ago | Reply here i disagree with mr asif ali that every province should be treated accordingly regarding scholaships.i want to say that scholarships must be awarded on the basis of merit and not on provincial basis.i myself belongs to province of sindh but it doesnot mean that i must support sindhi students for scholarships wether they fulfil elegibilty criteria or not.i think hec is doing good job by insuring merit ,it must survive and not to be devolved.

Imran | 13 years ago | Reply One doesnt understand why Raza Rabbani is hell bent in destroying one of the best known institution in Pakistan. The only logic which comes to mind is that as PPP doesnt want any institution in this country to function on merit so HEC must also fall in line.

Raza | 13 years ago | Reply

                             For the attention of Senator Raza Rabbani

Why government is after Higher Education Commission? What is so urgent? Going in to detail what government wants to achieve through the so-called HEC devolution plan, this step also create doubts about Senator Raza Rabbani intentions and even decline PPP government among minority (educated people of Pakistan). Let us discuss some modalities to avoid the embarrassment. It is evident that students in higher education benefited of HEC in Pakistan mostly belonged to lower middle class. It financed most of the talented poor students to advanced countries, where they earned their doctorate and master degrees. They are not only recognized professionally world over, rather they also earned respect within country with high perks. HEC programs create a new social class in Pakistan other than CSPs, politicians, and Arfmy, the new class of Professor. This new class started to receive respect in society and universities. It also attract people from other cadres like Bureaucracy and corporate professionals Still. lacs of students are doing their preparation to appear in GRE, NTS examination to receive HEC scholarship.Now, coming to the point. I would like to opine that by no cost this prestigious organization should be scrapped rather some other modality within its own frame of structure should be developed. The most appropriate is through its zonal offices or Provincial offices. Rather making HEC nil, it should be devolved to those zonal offices within certain period of time and then autonomize it. That would at one hand, do not affect its current programs possibly risking thousands of scholars futures, while at the second hand the spirit of eighteenth amendment will remain. The only point is devolution of the organization within its own structure rather destroying the marvelous organization with a lot of achievement to its credit.

Muhammad | 13 years ago | Reply There are some other things that HEC has done as well 1) Devalued the PhD degree by producing thousands of them without anticipating the demand. Did Dr. Atta answered the fundamental question of how many PhD's we require and in what fields and what basic question they will be able to address that will help the economy/industry and R&D of the country. Without this knowledge just by saying so many thousand PhD's so many publications means nothing. 2) Tenure track system which created a class system within the universities, tried to copy the American model without the check and balances. 3) Supervisors being paid 50,000 per publication, resulted in publication of dubious, low quality journal and conference publications. Just look at the cases of Plagiarism that have been highlighted and a through investigation will reveal many more as well 4) Can the HEC verify that the number of people who have got scholarships overseas and never came back, how many have deserted and left. Finally HEC is not a fund generating body, it was paid taxpayers money and from external donors. So before making judgments about HEC rise above the emotional euphoria and see both sides of the picture.

Tanweer Ahmed | 13 years ago | Reply Don't you recognize that as of date Punjab is the largest population of the country, have better educational institutions and produces more of talented students in the country? Why Baluchistan is last in the list? Simply because they produced less number of talented students. Who prevented them to do otherwise? They themselves. Hence the reasons of both sides those opposing HEC as well as those supporting it are very obvious.

Nation Prevails | 13 years ago | Reply It seems that Karim has some bad history with HEC

Asif Ali | 13 years ago | Reply i agree with karim. it should be dissolved and why not. according to authentic sources HEC awarded around 8000 foreign scholorship, could you believe only punjab got around 5800. sindh got 850. kpk got 1500 balochistan got 800. is this acceptable, stop doing such act it will lead pakistan towards distruction, already there is no consensus among 4 provinces. i support only if they clear that every one will be treated accordingly.

YBT | 13 years ago | Reply Raza Rubani is only creating confusion. HEC is not included in the list of ministries/functions to be transferred to provinces. This is a cover game. The actual game behind this is they want to make HEC powerless i.e to take away its ability to certify the educational certificates and degrees and to assure that no bogus degree awarding institutions exploit peoples (most of the bogus universities closed by HEC were run by MNAs and MPAs.) Another important aspect which is covered in this fog of 18th amendments confusion, along with half of the parliment members, around 20th of the civil service work force (from peon to Secretary level) have fake degrees. So in this the fake degree holders politicians and civil servant are together.

Uzair | 13 years ago | Reply @Karim: Dear Karim, It's amazing that your rationale against HEC is based on 'some' Americans who commented on our system while sitting miles away or just visiting it for a day or two. I am a student at a leading university in Lahore (UET). I joined the undergrad program when HEC just started its work and I have seen before my eyes establishment of eight research centers, inclusion of more than 100 PhDs in the faculty and funding of numerous research projects. I myself was a part of one of these projects, the proposal of which was sent to punjab government several times but they did not respond. Finally HEC, despite having no special funding for student projects at undergrad level, came to our rescue. Do you still believe that HEC has been thoroughly inefficient and our provinces can manage the area of Higher Education better that HEC?

Khawar | 13 years ago | Reply I have gone through all the comments above, and i would like to add some more information to Dear Karim Sb, that in our country only HEC is one of the commission by which the poor students could be and can be able to get their Higher Educaiton abroad which was impossible by theirselves, and you must know the present conditions of our country in which only the higher class (rich) could get higher education abroad, but all this is/was happening thru HEC for Poors. So, Please please don't let that happen. thanks

Eg | 13 years ago | Reply @ Karim If HEC's devolution is because of its incompetence (as suggested by you), what about the parliment. The parliment is the most incompetent institution in pakistan so you should yell out about that as well! No wonder it is full of ppl like you.

Asif | 13 years ago | Reply Karim, what are you talking about buddy? Fake degree holder's act to take revenge by devolving HEC is remarkable step? you must be kidding.

Naeem Akhtar | 13 years ago | Reply @Karim, Dear For you kind information, only because of HEC our degrees are being acknowledged worldwide, if your degree is not attested by HEC it is nothing but a piece of Paper. HEC has succeeded in ensuring Quality Education and that is evident by the accreditation given to HEC by world Standard Organizations, if HEC is not there every university will have to get those certifications byself, which means huge wastage of money, and if a new Commission is set up then that commission again has to do all the work of 3 years and money to get back that certification (if they may). Third, Govt is actually not devolving the HEC but dividing it among various departments, which means expenses and everything will remain same, they will get their degrees verified and People of Pakistan will suffer the loss. Please keep your personal bad experiences aside and for the first time try seeing the bigger picture, HEC might not have done what an Ideal institute might have done but HEC has definitely done much better than anyother institution in Pakistan, and all they want is to bring HEC under Politicians, please don't let that happen. I sincerely wish that you understand the significance of HEC, and become equally Vocal in favor of HEC as you are against at the moment. Disclaimer: I don't have any scholarship from HEC, but yes I studied in Pakistan and since my degree has been attested by HEC which helped me getting a good job, I want to PAY BACK to PAKISTAN!

Karim | 13 years ago | Reply HEC's devolution is a remarkanel step of the current democratic government. The claim that HEC is widely recognized a highly successful institution is a flighty statment with no truth to it. HEC has failed in ensuring quality education; it has been repeatedly proven full of irregularities and has been criticized by several eminent academicians. The fact that it pays some favored class of academicians much more actually shows how terribly wrong the commission has been in its approach. It is hoped that the devolution of the HEC will make things much better in future.

Asmat Jamal | 13 years ago | Reply Hope fully some better sense will prevail. Government and opposition will think rationally for the better of education in Pakistan.

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