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| September 24, 2003 | Wednesday | Rajab 26, 1424 |
Quality research needed for uplift: minister
ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: Federal Minister for Education Zobaida Jalal on Tuesday said development of strong institutions of higher education and quality research was crucial for sustained educational and economic development.
She stated this while talking to the correspondent of New York Times on the policies of the government on higher education.
The minister said in order to strengthen higher education in a true sense, the government had dissolved the University Grants Commission and established the Higher Education Commission in 2002.
She said the policies of the government aimed to enhance access to higher education from 2.6 per cent to 5 per cent with a substantial contribution from the private sector by establishing endowment funds in engineering universities in the public sector, shifting emphasis from humanities to science and technology and introducing IT education in all public universities.
Ms Jalal said the government had also established a virtual university with affiliate campuses. She said there were a total of 96 universities/degree-awarding institutions, 35 in the private sector as compared to 48 in 1999.
She said the government had already begun additional funding and performance-based incentives to universities to implement their modernization programme.
The minister said priority had been given to investments in the areas of institutional capacity-building to strengthen administration and management capacity at the national, provincial and university levels.
Moreover, she added, upgradation of professional and academic skills of the faculty relevant to teaching and learning had been adopted.
The access to higher education would be extended to at least 5 per cent of the age group of 17-23 years by the year 2010.
She said merit was the criterion for entrance to the higher education, adding that access to higher education was based on transparent entrance test.
Ms Jalal said split PhD programmes had also been launched in collaboration with the foreign universities and at the minimum, 100 scholars would be annually trained under this arrangement.
The minister said all quotas and reserved seats had been abolished. She hoped that access to higher education would be increased from 2.6 per cent to 5 per cent, whereas the enrolment would be up from 100,000 to 200,000 students by the year 2005.
She said the budgetary allocation for the higher education would also be increased from 0.39 per cent to 1 per cent of the GDP and shift from humanities to science and technology from current 70:30 to 50:50 by 2005.
The minister said upgradation of social sciences programmes and staff development would also be the prime objective of the government.
Ms Jalal said there were only 48 universities in 1999 as compare to 96 in 2002, including 35 in the private sector. She added that a sum of Rs1 billion was spent on the shifting from humanities to science and technical education, whereas Rs1 billion endowment fund set up for promotion of research in engineering universities.—APP
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