KARACHI, Nov 17: The Pakistan Engineering Council has recommended the Higher Education Commission to move a summary to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz for handing over the Dawood College of Engineering and Technology Karachi to the NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi as its constituent college.

According to a PEC official, the issue of DCET was discussed at length in the 93rd meeting of the PEC executive committee where several proposals were presented to improve the state of academic affairs at the DCET, currently being administered by the federal education ministry.

The PEC committee was apprised of observations made at the 22nd Vice-Chancellors' Committee meeting, held a few months back, where all VCs were of the unanimous view that the state of academic affairs at the DCET was unsatisfactory and needed immediate remedial measures, he informed.

He maintained that despite the VC committee's recommendations, a meeting held at DCET and attended by the former federal education minister, federal secretary education, convener of the PEC accreditation committee, the HEC, officials of the Sindh education department and the DCET principal decided to maintain status quo.

"That meeting, presided over by then Federal Education Minister Zobaida Jalal at DCET decided that the college will continue under the administrative control of the federal ministry of education," he informed, adding that the decision was made in contravention to the PEC's observation that this arrangement had failed to produce the required results in the past.

The PEC official said that the engineering council's executive council had discussed three proposals, which included: first, while maintaining DCET's federal character, the college may become a constituent institution of NUST; secondly, it may be handed over to the NED University Karachi as its constituent college; and thirdly, it may be handed over to the Dawood family. - PPI