KARACHI, March 20: The Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations (FAPUASA) alleged that the distribution of funds on higher education by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was not “transparent” and demanded of the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly to probe into its affairs.

“In addition, the HEC is threatening the public-sector varsities to comply with its policies by bypassing their statuary bodies including the academic council, syndicate and senate; otherwise their funding would be stopped.

‘‘This is ridiculous as the HEC is only an advisory, through which state funding to varsities routed”, FAPUASA President Sarwar Nasim told news conference at the University of Karachi.

He said that the HEC was trying to implement the Model University Ordinance (MUO) in phases, which was rejected by most of the varsities.

Terming HEC a “white elephant” and all its schemes, policies and steps including Tenure Track System, increase in PhD production and foreign faculty hiring programme a failure, Mr Nasim said that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) should take steps in consultation with the varsities and let their statuary bodies to take decisions.

He said that the criteria for judging the performance of teachers should be separated from researchers.

Mr Nasim said that the HEC was supposed to ensure adequate resources for quality education and research at the varsities but unfortunately, its emphasis was on research of natural sciences only.

He added that perhaps it was due to the fact that the HEC Chairman Dr Attaur Rehman himself was a scientist and had never been associated with classroom teaching at graduate and masters level.

Mr Nasim asked the HEC to hire foreign faculty only on a requisition from the existing faculty of the varsities, teachers of the public varsities should be given BPS 18-1 instead of 17-20 and condition of an NOC for travelling abroad from Sindh governor be abolished immediately.

He also demanded holding of selection boards for grade 21-22 for varsity teachers and appointment of academicians as vice-chancellors of public varsities.

Mr Nasim announced that the FAPUASA would shortly announce establishment of a ‘National Centre for Higher Education Policies’ Analysis’ and also hold seminars to keep media abreast of the HEC’s blunders. — PPI