Gathering support: Dr Attaur Rehman urges people to save the HEC

Calls termination of HEC executive director a contempt of court.

KARACHI:

As the tussle over the Higher Education Commission (HEC) continues, its former chairperson Dr Attaur Rehman urged people to raise their voices at different platforms and save “his baby”.

During a gathering at The Second Floor café on Sunday evening, Dr Rehman urged education enthusiasts to save the HEC from losing its autonomy to the current government.

The education commission’s downfall began after the degree-verification issue, which exposed several prominent personalities. After the devolution, the HEC lost significant power, but the latest blow - the appointment of a government-approved executive director - might just be the final nail in the coffin.

HEC’s executive director for the past nine years, Dr Sohail Naqvi, was replaced by the secretary of the ministry of education and training, Major (retd) Qamar Zaman Chaudhry on November 29. For Dr Rehman, this appointment is “not only a violation of the law but also a direct contempt of the Supreme Court of Pakistan”.

According to him, the HEC Act not only empowers the commission to appoint its own executive director, but the Supreme Court of Pakistan had also passed a ruling in April last year that granted constitutional protection to the HEC as an independent regulatory authority.



The HEC had always upheld its own standards of excellence that repeatedly irked those in power, he said, referring to the pressure exerted on the HEC when the Supreme Court ordered the verification of educational degrees of legislators in 2010.

“When we refused to bend under political pressure and called ‘a spade a spade’, they tried to shred the HEC and make education a provincial matter,” he said, referring to the attempts made to devolve the HEC last year.

Dr Rehman pointed out that education is controlled by the centre across the world, and sticking to a similar model for the HEC in Pakistan has yielded positive results. Recapping HEC’s achievements which have been called “a silent revolution” in an evaluation by the World Bank, he cited an increase in the enrolment rate in universities from 270,000 in 2003 to over a million students right now. The number of higher education institutions increased from 74 in 2001 to 143 in 2012 and several of them made it to the top 500 higher education institutions in the world. He also emphasised that the quality of education along with the quantity has been a priority for the HEC. Therefore, the use of technology and digital tools has also increased significantly over the past decade and tougher criterion for the appointment and promotion of faculty has been put into place, he added.

India is planning to launch a similar model by closing down its University Grant Commission and setting up a National Commission of Higher Education and Research, which is modelled along the lines of the HEC, Dr Rehman said.

Dr Rehman gave credit to Dr Sohail Naqvi, the recently deposed executive director, for spearheading these achievements. He added that his dismissal will not only affect the institution but also cause severe repercussions because of the violation of law.

“The future of the country does not lie in our oil or gold or minerals, but in our children. And it is our duty to prevent entities such as the HEC from falling prey to political tools so that investment in these children’s brighter future can be ensured.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2012.