ISLAMABAD: The education minister and other stakeholders on Wednesday agreed that budget for the higher education sector has remained under-funded and stagnant for the past few years.

Therefore, they discussed proposals for increasing the budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2021-22 in a virtual meeting.

Headed by Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood, the meeting held on the directive of Prime Minister Imran Khan, was attended by provincial ministers, former chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) and current chairman of Prime Minister’s Task Force Dr Attaur Rahman, HEC acting chairman Engineer Ahmed Farooq Bazai, HEC Executive Director Dr Shaista Sohail and others.

Sources said Dr Sohail, during her presentation, said universities had been complaining of shortage of recurring budget, therefore, there was a need to enhance HEC’s budget for the upcoming year.

Dr Rahman also briefed participants of the meeting about challenges being faced by universities due to shortage of recurring budget.

After being briefed by all stakeholders, the education minister, decided to hold another meeting on this subject on Monday, which will also be attended by finance minister and then a final decision will be taken. “Today’s meeting remained very positive, we are hopeful that in the second meeting, which is slated to be held on Monday, all stakeholders will recommend for substantial increase in HEC budget for the upcoming fiscal year,” said one of the participants of the meeting. HEC’s recurring budget was Rs63.1 billion in 2017-18, Rs65.02 billion in 2018-19, Rs64.1 billion in 2019-20, same allocation of Rs64.1 billion in 2020-21, sources said, adding that the proposed allocation of recurring budget (before the said meeting) for the coming financial year is Rs65 billion.

The proposed amount for the upcoming year will not meet the demand of 138 public sector universities with 92 sub-campuses and the government should consider all aspects before finalising the budget for HEC, the sources said, adding that inflation rate is 14.5pc and an increase in access to higher education from 1.76 million in FY 2017-18 to 2.06 million in FY 2020-21, increase in the number of PhD faculty from 15,028 in FY 2017-18 to 19,978 in current FY 2020-21 and increase in number of public sector universities from 99 to 138 with 92 regional campuses.

During the meeting, participants also discussed proposals for enhancement of federal and provincial resources for higher education sector and proposals to enhance development allocation for this sector. Whereas, proposals to enhance resource efficiency in higher education sector also came under discussion.

According to the meeting notice, issued by the education ministry: “Pakistan Higher Education (HE) sector has remained under funded and stagnant for the past so many years. Hence the needs of Higher Education have not been fully addressed in terms of its challenges. This has also adversely affected the social and economic development of the country ... Since education has been devolved to the provinces under the 18th amendment of the constitution, both federal and provincial governments are obligated to mobilize and enhance the resource allocation to meet the needs of Higher Education sector.”

The letter added that a meeting was presided by the prime minister on May 21, 2021 to review and examine the financial requirement of higher education sector in Pakistan which was attended by the Minister Federal Education & Professional Training, Minister Finance Division, Minister Planning Division & Special Initiatives, their secretaries and other relevant stake holders. The prime minister had directed the education minister to hold a meeting with all federal and provincial stake holders to discuss the issue and work out a strategy to enhance the resource allocation for the higher education sector.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2021