The 17-member commission is short of five members; four sent regrets. PHOTO: FILE
For third time in recent months, a meeting of the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) governing body scheduled for Monday was postponed due to lack of quorum.
Meetings of the HEC’s commission or governing body are held to take policy decisions about higher education in the country.
The 17-member commission is currently short of five members, while four of the remaining eight sent regrets.
According to the officials, the agenda of the meeting was the establishment of provincial higher education commissions and role of federal level body in that scenario. “We were supposed to discuss the post 18th Amendment scenario,” said HEC Executive Director (ED) Dr Mukhtar Ahmed.
Other important issues included the nomination of five members to complete the governing body, approval of the 2014-15 budget, and hiring of deputationists.
Nominations for members of the commission have been sent to the prime minister for approval, the ED said.
“When the quorum is not complete, nobody can do anything. This is unfortunate,” he said.
The members who did not turn up for the meeting included the Science and Technology secretary, secretary to the Balochistan governor, and the Punjab Higher Education Commission secretary. Meanwhile, the vice chancellor of Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences, who is also a member of the commission, informed the HEC that due to the President of Pakistan’s visit to Balochistan next week, he would be unable to attend.
VCs of three varsities
The search committee for the selection of vice chancellors for Quaid-e-Azam University, Allama Iqbal Open University and a rector for International Islamic University Islamabad has set the criteria to shortlist over 300 candidates. The committee is expected to meet this week to build the shortlist and set dates for interviews.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 8th, 2014.
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