LAHORE: Punjab University deans and chairmen of teaching departments say the Higher Education Commission (HEC) rules and regulations for MPhil and PhD programmes are widening teacher-student gap impacting the quality of education in some of the departments.

They expressed their serious objections and concerns over the recent action of the HEC banning PhD and Mphil/MS programmes in different departments of the university after finding gross violations of rules.

The HEC Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) has directed the PU to stop admissions to 27 PhD and 33 MPhil/MS programmes.

A PU dean said that in the past, a PhD student was to complete their PhD in four and a half years.

However, he said, the HEC increased the time limit to eight years which increased burden on the departments. He said that many scholars would take a maximum time to complete their PhD as they wanted to enjoy the most affordable accommodation and other facilities in PU hostels.

Another dean said that in some of MPhil programmes two coursework were being offered against thesis but the HEC team considered those students as thesis takers. He said the HEC team worked in a haste as they met with the representatives of 80 departments in just two days and did not reconcile the anomalies at the time of data collection.

He said that the problem raised question over the capacity of the HEC team as well and appealed to the HEC chairman to take notice of the report.

Another professor said that the HEC report had given an impression that there was low standard of education in some MPhil and PhD programmes of the PU.

However, he said, the HEC team had taken decision only on the basis of a gap between student-teacher ratio, in which HEC rules itself were a contributing factor. He said that all those programmes in which the HEC team had told to the PU stop further intake of students had been accredited by the HEC and no-objection certificates of all such programmes had also been issued.

A senior official of the university, requesting anonymity, said that the problem arose in the tenure of former Vice-Chancellor (VC) Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran who did not hold meetings of the selection board and put the future of MPhil and PhD programmes at stake.

He said that in the last three years of the tenure of Dr Kamran, not even a single meeting of selection board was convened on the pretext of Lahore High Court orders due to which teachers could not be promoted and new appointments could not be made. This created the shortage of teachers. He said many departments were still falling short of professors and PhD teachers and they could not meet minimum criteria laid down by HEC to launch and run MPhil and PhD programmes.

He added that during the tenure of Dr Kamran, the quality of PhD programmes was compromised just to show increase in number of MPhil and PhD students.

Meanwhile, PU VC Prof Niaz Ahmad has vowed to meet the gap in MPhil and PhD programmes to which the HEC has expressed its reservations.

At a meeting of heads of teaching departments at Al Raazi Hall here on Friday, he said that under PU’s own review system, the university did not announce admissions to spring semester this year to ensure quality education in MPhil and PhD programmes.

He said the university administration itself took this decision three months ago before the report of the HEC, which the university had received just two weeks ago.

PU Registrar Dr Muhammad Khalid Khan said that the HEC had appreciated most of MPhil and PhD programmes in the university. During the meeting, some faculty members pointed out that the HEC data on some departments needed to be fixed and reviewed by the HEC.

On the request of faculty members, the VC constituted committee to correct data on MPhil and PhD programmes.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2019