K-P HED fails to enforce varsity act 2016

Officials say govt has little to no role in the operation of higher educational institutions

PESHAWAR: Despite gaining control of the higher education sector under the 18th amendment and subsequent laws passed by the provincial assembly, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has been unable to effectively implement the laws, and in turn, reforms.

Nor have they been able to effectively spend their allocated development budgets.

The Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) had brought major amendments in the K-P Universities Act-2012. So much so that it also passed the K-P Universities (Amendment) Act 2016, to bring about reforms.



However, the K-P Higher Education Department has totally failed to properly implement these laws and with most public sector universities violating the new rules and continue to promote faculty on key administrative positions.

The latest offender in this series is the University of Peshawar (UoP) which has promoted four teachers on administrative positions, including Dr Arshad Haleemi — who was appointed as the director of the Quality Enhancement Cell, Dr Zia Obaid — who was appointed as the director of the Office of Research Innovation and Commercialization, Dr Rehman Ali — appointed as director Distance Education and Dr Sardar — appointed as the director of Advanced Studies.

Moreover, a clerical official was promoted to the post of assistant registrar against the university’s own statutes.

According to the Sections 13, 14, 15 and 17-A of the K-P Universities (Amendment) Act 2016, no faculty can work on administrative positions in universities.

However, several universities such as UoP, Islamia College University, Bacha Khan University, Abdul Wali Khan University and others have frequently appointed teachers on key positions in the varsity’s administration.

As a result, these teachers end up ignoring needs of students owing to their preoccupation with the varsity’s administrative affairs.

Unused funds

According to the documents from the K-P Planning and Development Department, available with The Express Tribune, the provincial government allocated a total of Rs6.3 billion for developmental works at higher educational institutions in the budget for the fiscal year 2017-18.

These funds were supposed to be used for 65 projects. Of these, work on 38 projects is said to be underway while work on 27 projects is pending.

However, the government has so far released around a third, or just Rs2.25 billion.

While one would expect that this fraction of funds released would have been instantly gobbled up by ongoing and new projects undertaken by the varsities, the department has only spent Rs1.83 billion with just a quarter to go in the fiscal year.

Speaking to The Express Tribune an official at the UoP, who did not wish to be named for fear of retribution, blamed the K-P HED for failing to implement the new law and affect development.

On the other hand, he said that universities too have ignored directions of the concerned department — with respect to hiring on administrative positions.

Asked about the funds, he said that a major part of the annual budget of universities is still provided by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Islamabad while the remaining funds are generated by the universities themselves.

Forced to rely on their own resources, he pointed out that cash-strapped varsities have resorted to hiking their admissions and semester fees by as much as 10 per cent every year for the past few years.

This practice, he pointed out, even led to severe student protests at the UoP late last year.

The higher education department, though, has no role in the universities apart from appointing vice chancellors, he criticised.



This was echoed by an official of the Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan, adding that most of the university’s employees were completely unaware about the role, if any, played by the K-P higher education department in their varsities.

On March 8, he recalled, the higher education department had suddenly woken up to the issue appointing teachers to administrative posts and issued a notification directing universities to remove the teachers from these posts and to fill them as per the procedure provided under the K-P Universities (Amendment) Act 2016.

Officials of the K-P higher education department did not respond to the repeated calls and messages for their version.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2018.