KARACHI, Sept 8: The minister in charge of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Prof Dr Attaur Rehman, has expressed concern at mushroom growth of, what he called, substandard universities, in the country, and said that an effective system for evaluation of universities will be introduced soon.

Speaking at a press conference at the HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry on Monday, he said that a surge in the number of new universities, many of them of low quality, was harmful for education in the country, regretting granting of charters to such institutions.

Prof Atta, who is also the chairman of the Higher Education Commission, said that to check the mushroom growth of such varsities, the federal cabinet, some one and a half year ago, had determined a policy for allowing setting up of varsities.

He said that the policy contained the minimum conditions regarding the area, building, and qualification of faculty, for a varsity, which he said was PhD degree.

For acquisition of charter it was required to meet these conditions, he said.

He pointed out that the new varsities, both in public and private sectors, were given a five-year period to meet such requirements.

Prof Atta said that one and a half year had already passed and if these institutions failed to meet the required standards within the stipulated timeframe, they would be reverted to their former statuses and their charters would be withdrawn.

He said that the vice-chancellors and chancellors of such varsities had already been informed through letters about the yardsticks in this respect.

He pointed out that some of these ‘varsities’ did not have even a single PhD faculty member on their panel.

Deploring reduction in the budget for science and technology, from Rs2.6 billion last year, to Rs1.2 billion, he said: “This is a setback for the country,” and added that the matter had been taken up with the president and the prime minister and it had been decided that the new projects should be initiated at the earliest and the budget would be revived by the end of the year.

These projects had been finalized and many of these had been approved as well, he added.

He also mentioned that India had prepared a 10-year plan, wherein it had been announced that the budget for science and technology would be increased to the two per cent of her Gross National Product (GNP).

Whereas, Pakistan was spending only about 0.5 per cent of its GNP on science and technology.

Prof Atta said that to meet the challenges of future the country should concentrate on education and science and technology.

The HEC chairman said that a system of rating and evaluating varsities would be introduced soon.

He stated that universities’ grants and the departments operational budgets had been increased.

Programmes had been initiated to increase the number of PhD qualified faculty members in our universities.

Prof Atta said that the examination system of universities would be streamlined and improved.—APP