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| September 22, 2005 | Thursday | Sha'aban 17, 1426 |
VCs asked to prepare development plans
ISLAMABAD, Sept 21: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman, Dr Attaur Rehman, on Wednesday asked vice-chancellors and rectors of public-sector universities to prepare their future development plans. He was speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day national forum on higher education at a local hotel. More than 50 heads of public-sector universities are attending the forum.
Dr Rehman asked the vice-chancellors to prepare the document of these development plans in consultation with their best teachers and make training arrangements for the faculty, administrative staff and officials working in various departments.
“The document should clearly state the present and future requirements of a university, the programmes to be undertaken to fulfil the requirements and the financial assistance needed to fulfil the vision,” he said.
He said the government’s renewed commitment towards the uplift of higher education sector coupled with reforms introduced by the commission had led to a renaissance in the higher education sector in the country.
“Further success of the programme depends on the sustainability of the policies and continuity of efforts made by the HEC,” he said.
The HEC chairman said at present the commission was focusing on faculty improvement, increasing access and increased participation in higher education, promoting excellence in learning and research and ensuring relevance of higher education to economic needs through increased stakeholders’ participation.
He said at present the most important area of the HEC’s focus was ensuring quality in all programmes launched in the higher education sector.
“To ensure this, the HEC has set up Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). Under this agency quality enhancement cells have been established in 10 universities,” he added.
Dr Rehman stressed on universities to develop a mechanism to abide by quality measures, particularly in MPhil and PhD programmes.
“The HEC will accept PhD degrees of only those universities which will strictly follow the minimum criteria for MPhil/PhD programmes laid down by the HEC. Physical inspections of PhD programmes of all universities are being carried out and list of universities not following the required criteria will be published in November this year,” Prof Rehman said.
The worst thing which can happen to higher education sector is production of low quality PhDs as these people will later become teachers and rot the entire system. So the HEC will not tolerate violations of quality criteria, the chairman said. He stressed on universities to create and strengthen university-industry linkages. He also mentioned the HEC programmes for this purpose.
Prof Rehman expressed concern over the dismal state of education and research in social sciences and humanities, and asked vice-chancellors to prepare a focussed programme to bring improvement to these sectors.
He mentioned the efforts of the HEC to introduce a new salary structure for vice-chancellors. He said the plan would be presented before the next chancellor’s committee meeting.
The HEC executive director, Prof Sohail Naqvi, gave a briefing about the current HEC programmes. He said during the last three years significant headways had been made by the commission which were becoming increasingly visible now. He called upon universities to get full benefit of the HEC programmes.
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