March 08, 2008	Saturday	Safar 29, 1429

ISLAMABAD, March 7: Executive Director, Higher Education Commission (HEC) Dr Sohail Hussain Naqvi on Friday was upbeat on the progress made by the country in higher education.

Higher education sector has witnessed gigantic changes due to the initiatives taken by the Higher Education Commission that have fundamentally altered the whole landscape.

He, however, stressed the need for steps to improve lower level education.

“The real success of the HEC development programmes is not however manifested in the restored campus buildings and wireless ‘hot spots’, it is visible in the hearts and minds of the faculty and students”, he said while delivering a lecture on higher education arranged by the faculty of Engineering and Technology of the International Islamic University, Islamabad. A large number of students, teachers and intellectuals attended the lecture and asked various questions. The government has balanced its emphasis both on lower and higher education.

Dr Naqvi said the role of higher education in the national development had been recognised as the driving force.

About the lower education Dr Naqvi said that it also requires appropriate budget allocations as the lower education is feeder of the higher education.

Dr Naqvi also spoke on various issues faced by the higher education in Pakistan. Dr Naqvi maintained that one reason that universities are set up is so that, “common good, just laws, human reason and prudence might develop and grow. The HEC has endeavoured to bring this spirit back, which is also our Islamic heritage. Logic, philosophy and mathematics used to be a hallmark of an ‘education’.

With the elimination of undergraduate education from the universities, and the consolidation of the two-year bachelor degree in colleges, universities in Pakistan had ended up merely catering to the provision of post-graduate studies. Dr Naqvi said that acknowledging this international requirement now, the HEC has made four-year education compulsory for bachelor degree.