KARACHI, Feb 16: The provincial task force on higher education has urged the public sector varsities to not to grant affiliation to the private institutions, which are not-registered with the Sindh Education department.

Education department sources said that in its first meeting, the task force, among other items, also discussed the alleged issuance of NOC by the Higher Education Commission, Islamabad, and by different public sector varsities, to private educational institutions running academic programmes at degree level without government's recognition.

The meeting, presided over by the chairman of the force, Dr S M Qureshi, resolved that the HEC should not issue NOCs to unregistered institutions, under the Private Education Institutions (regulation and Control) Ordinance-2001 or amendment Act-2003.

The meeting further decided that public sector varsities should also ensure, prior to grant of affiliation to any private institution, that it was registered with the Sindh government under the existing private school ordinance, a source added.

A senior official in the Education department said that prior to the fresh amendments, made by the Sindh assembly in the 2001 ordinance, the executive district officers were competent authorities for registration in the case of A/O-level or higher secondary education institutions and of technical education institutions also, while the institutions desiring to run programmes above the intermediate level were required to apply to the Sindh Education department.

However, after the implementation of the amendment act-2003, now, the Sindh Education department was the sole registration authority for all types of educational institutions run in the private sector.

Any institution, which had already acquired registration certificate from the District government's education department for running institutions up to intermediate level and wanted to introduce degree-level courses, was also required to get registered for the purpose with the Sindh Education department, the official clarified.

It was learnt that majority of the varsities in the province normally did not bothered to ascertain the legal status of educational institutions and resorted to grant them permission to commence various programmes, including those in medicine, Business Administration, Computer Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Public Administration, Mass Communications, Economics, Finance and Commerce, after inspecting the teaching, library and laboratory facilities.

The Task Force meeting was also attended by the vice-chancellor of the Karachi University, Dr Pirzada Qasim, Director of Institute of Business Administration, Mr Danishmand, Additional Secretary (A&T) Sindh Education department, Dr Noorul Haq and Taleb Karim of IBM.

The meeting also reviewed the mushroom growth of institutions of higher education and resolved that an Information Cell be established for parents and students seeking information about any institution.

The list of chartered, registered and under grant of NOC institutions should be placed with the Cell and also on a website, it was further decided.

With regard to the 42 institutions, whose status had been challenged by the HEC, it was resolved in the meeting that notices to all these institutions be served, stating that they should get legal cover, ie registration under Private Educational Institutions (Regulation and Control) Ordinance-2001 and subsequent amendments, within one month or close down their institutions.

In the meantime, a source in the department said that notices would be delivered to the faulty higher education institutions within a couple of days, demanding them to stop issuing degrees or certificates or making fresh admissions and teaching at their respective institutions with immediate effect.