ISLAMABAD, Sept 11: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has completed 10 years of its establishment during which it achieved more in the field of education compared to the first 55 years of Pakistan.

This was stated by executive director HEC Prof Dr S. Sohail Naqvi in an interaction organised in connection with the celebration of the HEC’s 10 years.

Vice chancellors, faculty members and scholars from different parts of the country interacted through video conferencing.

Dr Naqvi said since September 2002, the higher education sector in Pakistan had witnessed the launch of a sea change of initiatives by the Higher Education Commission that fundamentally altered the higher education landscape.

“The change is physically manifested in the restored buildings, new classrooms, laboratories, computers, jogging tracks and state-of-the-art libraries,” he said.

Highlighting the 10 years’ achievement of the higher education sector, he said as an outcome of dedicated hard work by university faulty and support by university administration, six Pakistani universities were now ranked among the top 300 Asian universities while two universities were ranked among the top 300 science and technology institutions of the world.

Other main achievements included spread of higher education to every region of Pakistan with an increase in number of campuses from 168 to 258, including the establishment of 41 new universities, increase in student enrollment from 330,000 to over a million, increase in the percentage of women enrolled in universities from 36% to 46%, and award of more than 10,000 local and foreign scholarships.

During this period, more than 5,000 Pakistani scholars were also facilitated to present their research work in leading conferences abroad.

There has been eight-fold increase in international research publications resulting from research work undertaken in Pakistan and 300 per cent increase in Pakistan’s share of world research, having 0.32% of the world’s publications in 2010.