Troubled waters: HEC struggling against tidal wave of internal issues

Bad governance, NTS, university ranking issues need to be addressed

ISLAMABAD: After reaching its peak, the Higher Education Commission has taken a nosedive in the past three years, with bad governance being the prime contributor.

The sharp downturn witnessed on many fronts has led to challenges stacking up for the management, who seem helpless when confronting them.

Governance issues

The HEC governing board consists of 18 members — two federal secretaries, four provincial representatives, an executive director, a vice chancellor, and 10 nominees of the prime minister.

But for the past two years, the commission has been functioning with less than 10 members, two of whom recently completed their terms with the body, while the representative from Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa, Dr Ehsan, the vice chancellor of Abdul Wali Khan University, and Abdul Jabbar, principal secretary to the Balochistan governor, are also nearing the ends of their terms.

Galvanised into action after being reprimanded by the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Training, the HEC held a governing body meeting in September last year, after a 17-month delay.

Under the HEC Ordinance, the governing body is supposed to meet biannually. In the 2012-13 an Auditor General of Pakistan report criticised the HEC for taking policy decisions without prior approval of its commission.

“Since 2002 the HEC has a culture of taking decisions…without going by the book…dozens of policies need to be discussed and approved by the governing body,” commented an HEC official who was not authorised to talk to media. He believed this was factoring into the top management’s reluctance to call the meeting.

The HEC said that the next meeting is likely to be held in April.

NTS bylaws

Last March, the Lahore High Court termed the private testing body, National Testing Service, illegal and directed the HEC to formulate a new body by May 2014, but since then, the education regulator has only requested extensions in the deadline in lieu of a few scholarships that require NTS testing as a prerequisite.

The last deadline was extended till January 31, 2015, but according to officials privy to meetings about formulation of rules for a new testing body, a lot of work still remains. “Nothing concrete has been done for despite several deadlines (passing),” he said.

Vacant posts

In April last year, the HEC appointed Mansoor Kundi as member academics office on deputation, which is coming to an end, and no permanent replacement has been found. Only recently, applications were invited for the post and 10 candidates were shortlisted out of 25. Their interviews were conducted last week, and three names were finalised.

Similarly, the HEC has no board member for operations and planning, while three posts for advisers in grade 21 and five for deputy directors were advertised in August 2014, but no hiring has been done against them.

Varsities ranking

The ranking of universities has been another example of HEC’s snail pace progress. The first, and so far the only, ranking was release by the education body in 2013 based on 2011-2012 data and was subjected to severe criticisim for its glaring flaws.

The then0HEC chief Javaid Laghari had hinted at outsourcing the rankings for “unbiased and transparent” results.

Since then, the HEC has been dragging its feet over issuing the next ranking as “it is finding it difficult to get correct and reliable data as some universities provide exaggerated figures” on research papers, and faculty strength.

HEC Media Director Ayesha Ikram said that as soon as the next commission meeting is held, the three shortlisted names will be forwarded for approval. About the ranking and testing bodies, she said the process has been expedited and the HEC will be done with both soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2015.