PM Abbasi forms body for headhunting new HEC chief

Six-member body full of notable names such as Syed Babar Ali, Dr Sania Nishtar

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has tasked a six-member committee to select a new chief for the apex higher education body in the country.

Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, the incumbent chairman of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), will see his three-year term expire on April 15.

With just over under three months to go, and the government apparently not in the mood to extend Dr Ahmed’s tenure, it has stepped up efforts to look for a new chief. A notification to the six-member ‘headhunting’ committee was issued by the Ministry of Education and Professional Training on January 23, two weeks after a summary for the committee was forwarded to the PM Secretariat.

According to the notification, the government has picked a team of who’s who to pick out the next HEC chairman.

Famous Pakistani businessman, philanthropist and former finance minister Syed Babar Ali, has been named as the convener of the committee.

Other members of the committee include former health minister, health expert and activist Dr Sania Nishtar; educationist Faisal Bari; former parliamentarian Shahnaz Wazir Ali; Mirza Qamar Baig and the secretary of the education ministry.

The prime candidate?

The notification has also listed the terms of references for the search committee apart from providing a loose outline of what the government believes is their ideal candidate in terms of age, qualification, and experience.

The committee is expected the advertise the position of the HEC chairman based on the criteria set in the notification and then scrutinise the applications and shortlist candidates as per the requirements.

After the candidates complete their interviews, the committee will then finalise three suitable candidates for approval from the prime minister who has the final say. Dr Ahmed had been appointed as HEC chairman in April 2014 by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif. His appointment came after the government had failed to fill the seat for nearly seven months. This time, the government wants to avoid that situation.

Dr Ahmed is the third chairperson of the HEC after Dr Attaur Rehman and Javed Laghari. Dr Rehman had been appointed as the inaugural chief of the commission by the then chief executive of Pakistan General (retired) Pervez Musharraf in 2002.

Mixed legacy

With his tenure set to end in April, Dr Ahmed can look back on a term which was a mixed bag. Some decisions and actions were taken which were not favoured by his predecessors. One of these was when the HEC stopped four universities from admitting students in any degree programme for academic irregularities and mismanagement.

Moreover, the commission took the bold step of closing down around 450 Master in Sciences and Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) programmes of different universities since they failed to fulfil the HEC criteria.

The HEC also did not shy away from blacklisting as many as 155 fake higher education institutions in the country and putting their names on its website. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2018.