ISLAMABAD, July 27: Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Attaur Rahman has said that Pakistan’s higher education budget has been planned to reach Rs90 billion in the next seven years.

“The government has decided to increase the higher education budget by 1 per cent of the Gross National Product (GNP) in next seven years which means we will be spending Rs85-90 billion annually,” he said.

Talking to Dawn, he said it was decided by President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

The allocation had been increased by 1,500 per cent from Rs800 million to Rs11.7 billion in 2005-06.

He said there would be 50 per cent increase every year in the higher education budget and it would be surely 1 per cent of the GNP in seven years.

He said that 6-7 per cent of the GDP growth rate was helping to significantly enhance the higher education budget.

Replying to a question, he said a 15-year vision had been finalized to promote higher education.

“The moto of this vision is education for national development,” he said, adding that next month he would be giving a presentation to the president and the prime minister about it.

He said since the West had closed its doors on Muslims for higher education, Pakistan had decided to take a lead to offer higher education to many Islamic countries. “I have submitted a joint project of Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the government to open a campus in Pakistan in the name of late President Sheikh Zayed,” he said, adding that students from the UAE could seek higher education at the proposed campus.

Pakistan, he said, was currently discussing with other countries to provide quality education to Muslim students in Pakistan. In this regard, he said, the Turkish and Saudi governments were also likely to have separate campuses in Pakistan for their students.

“Our delegations comprising vice-chancellors of various universities have visited the UAE and Saudi Arabia for opening of campuses in Pakistan,” the HEC chief said.