College autonomy: Shahbaz resisting party pressure to relent

Chief minister dismisses concerns that move will hurt PML-Nawaz in the polls.

LAHORE: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif is determined to grant autonomy to 26 public colleges, despite opposition from colleagues in the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), sources in the ruling party and the Higher Education Department told The Express Tribune.

The sources said that party members first voiced opposition to the plan several months ago when a very vocal PML-N MNA from Lahore and a dozen party MPAs called on party chief Mian Nawaz Sharif. Some members renewed their objections at a meeting of the party’s Organising Committee in Islamabad last week, saying that the issue should be shelved for this term as it could hurt the party at the next elections.

On both occasions, the chief minister rejected their reservations and reaffirmed his commitment to establishing boards of governors to manage all 460 public colleges by 2013, the sources said. They said that Shahbaz Sharif was under pressure from the Asian Development Bank to get the cost of running the colleges off the provincial budget.

There are some 500,000 students at the intermediate, bachelors and masters level at these 460 colleges, according to the Higher Education Department. In August, the Punjab government issued a notification stating that boards of governors would be established and four-year degree programmes started in 26 colleges. These colleges have 35 per cent of the total number of undergraduate students in the Punjab’s public colleges.

Several groups have voiced opposition to the Punjab government’s plan. Some students and teachers say that the establishment of boards of governors is the first step towards the privatisation of colleges, which will result in steeply rising tuition fees. The Pakistan Peoples Party, Jamaat-i-Islami and PML-Quaid oppose the plan.

Chaudhry Muhammad Akram, the additional secretary of the Higher Education Department, said that the boards of governors would give colleges the flexibility to hire the staff and buy the equipment needed to start four-year degree programmes.

He said that the higher education sector needed reform, as pass rates were low and even those who did graduate lacked the skills needed in the modern workplace. The pass percentage at the 26 colleges is 60-70 per cent at the intermediate level, while it is 30-40 per cent at the degree level.

“Recruitment institutions like the Federal Public Service Commission and Punjab Public Service Commission lament the falling standards and inadequacies of the graduates of public sector institutes,” Akram said

He said that tuition fees would not be raised and the government teachers at the autonomous colleges would enjoy the same rights as before.

Qaiser Sharif, a spokesman for the Joint Action Committee of Teachers and Students, said that the committee and the Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association had given the government until December 31 to withdraw the boards of governors from the 26 colleges, otherwise they would stage a ‘Taleem Bachao’ (Save Education) rally on The Mall on January 13.

Punjab government spokesman Senator Pervaiz Rashid was not available for comment.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2010.