KARACHI: Degree-awarding institutions to have ratings
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Dec 20: Chairman of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, Dr Atta-ur- Rehman, said on Saturday that the government would issue ratings of degree-awarding institutions, including institutions of business education in the country within two or three months.
“The workings of degree-awarding institutions, both public and private, in the country are being monitored with the purpose to evaluate and determine their educational standards,” he said and added that the institutions would be categorized with respect to their quality of education and other related facilities, and it would be up to students and their parents to decide where to have admissions.
Dr Atta, who is also the federal minister in charge for science and technology, was talking to newsmen at the end of the sixth convocation of the Institute of Business Management, where he was the chief guest and conferred degrees on graduates.
When his attention was drawn towards the substandard education at business management education institutions and the flexibility in credit hours and courses,” he said and added that universities and other degree-awarding institutions had been provided with the modified curricula.
“Degree-awarding institutions have been provided with HEC-designed and modified curricula for different disciplines in order to bring uniformity in the courses of study. Institutions failing to implement the curricula will have to face the music in the due course of time.”
He further said that degree-awarding institutions in the private sector had also been issued guidelines to enhance the standard of education. “They are required to do so in line with the federal cabinet decision within a stipulated period of five years, two years of which have already passed”.
On the issue of the tenure track system, a tool formulated by the HEC for rehiring the existing faculty members on contract basis by paying them heavy salaries, Dr Atta said that the system was aimed at raising the financial status of devoted university teachers, but that too would not be imposed unilaterally.
“We understand that universities are autonomous bodies and their agreement will be needed. No public sector university in the country has so far informed the HEC of adopting the system, for which government has already allocated significant amount of money,” he said he added that meetings with teachers would also be held to know their grievances.
Earlier, speaking at the convocation, Dr Atta exhorted the graduates to act as agents of socio-economic change in the country. “You must realize that knowledge is the key driver for any development, and you would have to work for maximum exploitation of the available resources in the country”
He said the government was taking measures to keep students and teachers aware of modern-day knowledge, and that was why it had initiated programmes to enhance the number of PhDs. “All the universities in the country will be fibre-linked, as many as 11,600 full-text research journals will be made available on line under a digital library system.
