ISLAMABAD:
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) might be denied a grant of US$100 million from the World Bank because it has failed to achieve certain set targets, due to reduced government funding.
The World Bank signed an agreement with the government last year under which the bank committed to provide $300 million to Pakistan in three equal annual instalments. The agreement was signed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs & Statistics and the World Bank, with representatives of the HEC and finance ministry also present.
The “Tertiary Education Support Programme for the implementation of Higher Education Medium Term Development Framework II” project was approved by the World Bank’s board in March 2011.
The objective of the project is to improve the conditions of teaching, learning and research for enhanced access, quality and relevance of tertiary education.
Under the agreement, the bank committed to provide the funds as long as the HEC met 10 disbursement link indicators (DLI). Those indicators are moving farther out of reach every day due to reductions and delays in HEC funding from the finance ministry, according to HEC officials.
HEC Human Resources Management Adviser Riaz Hussain Qureshi, who also deals with the commission’s financial matters, admitted that non-availability of necessary funds had left the HEC unable to meet the performance targets.
Even in 2011, the commission got just $46 million of the $100 million that it had to get, because it only managed to fulfil four DLIs. “Under the programme, we should have gotten $100 million by [March 2012],” Qureshi said, while noting that under the agreement, the bank will not release the remaining funds unless the HEC meets all 10 indicators.
The HEC has been facing a tremendous financial crunch due to the finance ministry’s refusal to release its full budget allocation over the last two years, with some Rs9 billion of its allocated budget from the fiscal year 2010-11 alone remaining unreleased.
Even after recent directives from Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to release Rs6 billion, the finance division only released Rs2 billion.
Accordingly to HEC officials, Rs4.6 million is required for salaries at 74 public sector universities, and non-release of the pending Rs9 billion would have a serious impact on higher education.
Disbursement link indicators
Allocation and timely release of recurrent and development funds to HEC under the agreement.
445 scholars to be awarded under the indigenous postgraduate scholarship programme in the first year of the programme.
849 teachers to be recruited on Tenure Track System.
All affiliated colleges need to meet the minimum quality standard set by the HEC.
Provision of enhanced quality education at Masters level for external students.
Enhancing research, innovation and commercialisation performance.
Improving equitable access through the establishment of an effective student financial aid system.
Introducing a scorecard-based system for performance assessment of quality enforcement cells in public technical education institutes.
Number of higher education institutes (HEI) assessed (management)
Improved strategic management planning and accountability in public HEIs.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 14th, 2012.
COMMENTS (10)
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@Toba Alu: I agree with you but those grants are there to facilitate their loan products. For example project preparation TA grant of $1m is given to a country to buy a $50m loan.
Why didn't HEC use the initial installment of the loan effectively, as laid down in the agreement. You can fool the Pakistani people with number twisting and blaming others, but not the WB. If an international donor gives a loan/grant, it is always against certain goals. You can't divert the funds to other projects, inflating your hefty salaries, or to fund fake/plagiarized Re-Search.
It's fine by me. There is no justification for all such loans in the name of our people while the HEC and its top tier employees, a bunch of directors and executive directors, spend the funds on their lavish life styles and foreign travel etc. The HEC must let us know how often and how diligently their expenses are monitored and audited. HEC is one of those organizations which in the name of higher education has ensured higher standard of living for its very heavy top. Just a few fake educationists and scientists with nothing to show for.
@ Sonya. Your are likely correct that it is a loan. However, WB and ADB do have grant windows, be it rather few and small. For the sake of my argument, a loan would make it even worse.
The Government should have taken some money out of BISP and given to HEC, which prepares the future of the country, rather than turning the nation into beggars (through BISP). It proved that education had never been the priority of the politicians. A very sad attitude of the Government as well as the opposition who never voiced in favour of HEC funding.
HEC must have now felt the feelings of the scholars when they deny their travel grants and scholar use to lose huge money around 500 USD as registration fees of conferences.
This education sector grant to Pakistan should have never been approved by the WB Board. Sector budget support to a country that refuses to tax agriculture and its landlords (and many other elites), with less than 2 million people that pay tax shows the lunacy of sector budget support even when it is linked DLI's. Such payments are always fungible despite the DLI's. Reducing development cooperation to a financial problem is the biggest mistake. It is about technical assistance and assisting countries (when they wish so) to develop and become part of the modern world (economically, socially and environmentally). In this case, the elite has never been interested in educating common Pakistani's, only in educating their own children and that is what they did and keep doing. Easy if you rob your country for your own benefits. An uneducated mass keeps the wages low and that is good for the rich. All these loans and grants only contribute to maintaining the status quo (in terms of power, inequality, and more). Time that the major donors go back to the basic principles of sound collaboration and leave out their local or regional political aims. Development cooperation did NOT come about for achieving political aims. Unfortunately, current practices seem to show otherwise (at least for the biggest donor, i.e. USA).
World Bank and Asian Development Bank are in the business of giving loans to countries and reporting by media must not be misleading. WB-HEC agreement is also a loan agreement and NOT a grant as the headline says. This loan which is being utilized by selected researchers on extended foreign study tours will have to be returned with interest by the poor tax payers of this country for a long time to come. Pakistan's federal government has budgeted about Rs 80 billion for the payment of interest on foreign loans for 2012-13 (huge amount on domestic loans is separately dealt), last year it paid around Rs 75 billion interest only on foreign loans.