ISLAMABAD: Vice chancellors of public sector universities here on Saturday rejected the idea of public-private partnership campuses.

Around 60 vice chancellors at a meeting held at the Higher Education Commission (HEC) told the HEC to play its role in stopping the partnership, saying the practice was creating quality issues. Sources said almost all the VCs through show of hands rejected the proposal.

However, HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed decided to form a VCs committee and refer the matter to it for a review. It was also decided that sub-campuses would not be allowed to offer MS and PhD programmes.

“After detailed deliberations, the vice chancellors agreed to curtail MS and PhD programmes at sub-campuses and allow them to offer only undergraduate programmes after ensuring strict compliance with the HEC eligibility criteria,” said a spokesperson for the HEC.

Addressing the meeting of the VCs, the HEC chief appealed to the VCs to pay heed to governance issues in their universities besides ensuring quality education at the sub-campuses.

The vice chancellors unanimously demanded that provinces should review the amendments to the law governing their universities.

The head of leading educational universities passed a resolution stating. “We the vice chancellors of public sector universities are of the opinion that the recent changes to laws governing universities are an attempt to usurp their autonomy though the argument was to improve governance. The changes will be a death-knell for higher education in the country.”

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2015

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