BHURBAN, June 25: The Chairman, Higher Education Commission, Dr Attaur Rehman, on Saturday stressed the need for research in critical areas of health sector. Speaking at the inaugural session of a two-day interventional cardiology summit’ here, the HEC chairman said that a grant of Rs20 million had been allocated for research in medical sector.

The scientific and interactive conference has been organized by the Pakistan Society of Interventional Cardiology. About 29 cardiologists from India and Pakistan will discuss critical issues relating to modality of treatment and formulate preventive guidelines for local people who are at risk of developing heart disease.

Dr Rehman said funds for research projects would be provided to faculty members through public sector universities and degree-awarding colleges. Funding will also be made to the faculty members of private universities and colleges provided they conduct collaborative research with the public sector institutions, he added.

Dr Rehman asked the medical researchers to conduct joint researches with leading international scientists to benefit from the advancement taking place in the world in the field of medical sciences, particularly in biotechnology, genomics, and biometrics.

Besides, he said, this amount can be used to develop linkages with internationally renowned centres of excellence to improve the quality of medical research, stop transfer of resources, brain drain from pakistan and increase exports of the country.

In response to a question by this reporter about the fund lying with health ministry for medical research, Dr Rehman said, he had asked the ministry in this connection.

He said the quality of private medical institutions was very poor like other education institutions in the country.

Replying to a question, he said the HEC was an autonomous and strong regulator of higher education including professional education be it engineering or medical.

The role of Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and Pakistan Engineering Council is more concerned with professional accreditation.

Dr Rehman said the HEC would issue a ranking and accreditation of private medical colleges, shortly which would eliminate the substandard institutions.

However, he refused to comment on the PMDC-ministry of health row saying “I don’t want to be drawn into it”.

He regretted that in Pakistan the access to quality higher education is abysmally low with only 5-7 per cent having this privilege.

Maintaining quality and keeping relevance to national and international demands is an even greater challenge, Dr Rehman said, adding “the world has shrunk into a global village and to make maximum use of the situation high quality video-conferencing facility is being provided to most of the universities”.

He said our universities would have live lectures and interactive sessions from reputed institutions like Stanford, MIT, Columbia and a number of others through Pakistan Education and Research Network (Pern). Through this programme 56 universities have been provided with connectivity up to 155MB and necessary infrastructure to provide access to over 17,000 international journals from world’s leading publishing houses.

“We are using information and telecommunication technology to leapfrog into future,” he said and added that the impact of all that is being done would be visible after 5-10 years.

“It is certainly an Everest to climb, but we are surely on the right path atleast.”

The HEC chairman stressed on converting Pakistan from an agriculture to knowledge-based economy.

Prof Nadeem Hayat Mallick, President Pakistan Society of Interventional Cardiology, giving details of the summit said it would deliberate on complications arising out of angioplasty.

The summit, he said, would come up with recommendations and guidelines for the best practices, most suitable technology for our region and measures for lowering its cost.