Recurring grant for varsities up by 9.2%

No varsity will be added to grant stream in next fiscal

ISLAMABAD:

After a year where varsities struggled for funds after their allocation was cut, the government has approved a 9.2 per cent increase in recurring grants for higher education institutions for the fiscal year 2020-21.

Moreover, it has prepared a special package worth Rs285 million for universities from Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, over and above their normal allocation for the upcoming financial year 2020-21.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) said that it had requested the federal government to allocate Rs104.789 billion as the recurring grant for FY 2020-21. The money will be used for universities as well as for pursuing HEC’s research agenda, starting several new initiatives (NAHE, ETC, HEMIS, PERU, and P-15 Research Universities), funding the Tenure Track Faculty, funding the Pakistan Education and Research Network (PERN), and meet the resource demands for Covid-19 related challenges.

It added that the matter was raised with Prime Minister Imran Khan in two separate letters, while the Federal Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood, and Adviser on Finance and Revenues, were informed about the consequences of inadequate allocation to higher education.

However, the commission said that the cash-strapped government has only approved Rs70 billion as the recurring grant for the next fiscal year 2020-21. This represents an increase of only 9.2 per cent in comparison with the ongoing year's (FY 2019-20) funding of Rs64.1 billion.

An immediate impact of the lower increase, the commission said, is that next year, no new university will be added to the recurring grant stream.

At least 20 newly-established universities had approached HEC for funding from FY 2020-21. The inclusion of new universities would have resulted in the reduction of allocations to older universities, the commission explained.

Despite that, the commission said that funding for all universities has been increased based on their performance, as indicated by the number of researches published by their faculty members, number and amounts of the research grants received, the bandwidth utilized for access to digital libraries and internet resources, the money spent on conferences and professional travel, and the number of PhD faculty and students.

Moreover, the commission has decided to triple the allocation for universities in the erstwhile federally administered tribal areas (Fata).

Meanwhile, HEC has carried out a rigorous exercise for allocation of funds amongst its National Research Programmes, different types of universities and higher education institutes considering their needs and availability of overall funding, and HEC secretariat expenses, which constitute less than a percentage of the total allocated funds.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2020.