‘Red-tape hampers HEC funding’

The HEC claims that it provides funds to private universities but the process is marred with red-tapism.

LAHORE: The Beaconhouse National University (BNU) has hardly ever received funding from the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Ijaz Hussain, an assistant professor in BNU, told The Express Tribune.

The HEC claims that it provides funds to private universities, he said, but the process is marred with red-tapism.

He said that the universities around the world were not run only on the funds generated through tuition fees. “A university needs funds from the state, local governments or private beneficiaries to undertake research and development work.”

He said that the BNU has been generating funding from its research projects and the Beaconhouse School System. Revenues from research projects, he said, were expected to fall in the wake of the recent floods as both the government and non-government organisations (NGOs) had directed their resources towards it.

He said that the BNU set up an Institute of Public Policy in a bid to generate funds.

He said that the step has not yet bore any fruit. The set up and operating cost of the institute, he said,  were too high and there was yet no demand for its research output in either the private and public sector.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2010.