ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has stopped four universities from giving admissions to students in any degree programme, owing to academic irregularities and mismanagement.

These institutions include Preston Institute of Management Sciences and Technology, Karachi, Imperial College of Business Studies, Lahore, Global Institute, Lahore, and Al-Khair University, AJK.

“We banned the institutions from offering admissions in the recent pasts, but they are violating the ban, so we issued this warning today,” Chairman HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed told Dawn.

He said that in addition to main campuses, their sub-campuses, branches or affiliated colleges had also been not allowed to admit students at any level in any programme.

The HEC chairman said complying with the directives of the prime minister, HEC review panels visited universities in 2016 across the country for review of quality assurance and governance practices.

The universities with unsatisfactory report were asked to overcome the deficiencies. However, the four institutions have still not complied despite reminders and, therefore, they have been asked to stop admitting students in all of their academic programmes.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2017