KARACHI: Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood on Thursday denied any cut in the budgetary allocation for the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan.

Responding to queries raised by students and educationists following his detailed presentation on ‘Education System of Pakistan: Challenges and Way Forward’ organised by Karachi School of Business and Leadership (KSBL), he strongly dispelled the impression that funds for the commission may have been slashed.

On the contrary, the allocation for HEC and its varied schemes were cited to be complemented by funding for its numerous ongoing projects under National Development Programmes by the current government.

To another query about lack of jobs for PhDs in the country, the minister attributed the situation to lack of planning. “This is an issue along with that of questionable quality of the degree holders,” he commented.

Shafqat Mahmood said that he, in his personal capacity, was of the view that higher education should be under the federal government and that he at the same time believed that there should be least involvement of the government in the sphere of higher education and research.

“Public policy and policy [implementation] is a very complicated process in our country and for this we have to rectify the system,” said the federal education minister in reply to a question about how to improve the process of recruitment and also how to hold the teachers accountable.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2019