ISLAMABAD, Sept 19: The provincial governments are not following the criteria laid down by the federal government to ensure quality assurance of the public sector universities, Federal Minister for Education Zobaida Jalal told the Senate on Friday.
In reply to a volley of supplementary questions during the question hour of the upper house, the minister said the cabinet had approved a national policy highlighting strict criteria to ensure quality of public sector universities. But the provincial governments, she added, were not following these criteria on the grounds that education was a concurrent subject and the federal government through the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had no right to supervise the working of the universities in the provinces.
She said the controversy had started when under the national policy, the federal government announced that all the universities had to follow the criteria within five years. That was the reason that the HEC has been writing letters to all the universities to implement these criteria, she said.
The minister, however, conceded that under the law universities in different provinces were not bound to implement the policies of the federal government.
Senator Khalid Ranjha also explained that the universities in different provinces had been established under a charter passed by the provincial assemblies with the governor of each province as their chancellor. The HEC has no authority over the governors to supervise the affairs of the universities and, therefore, the HEC should be discouraged from interfering in the affairs of these universities, he maintained.
Ms Jalal said all the funding meant for the universities were routed through the HEC.
She said an amount of Rs7.8 billion had been released to federally-funded public sector universities as a recurring grant during 2000-03. Out of this amount, she added, a sum of Rs3 billion was provided in 2002-03, Rs2.5 billion in 2001-02 and Rs2.25 billion in 2000-01.
Similarly, a development grant of Rs330.4 million was provided to the HEC in 2000-01, which was later released to the universities. Likewise, an amount of Rs416 million was released to the HEC in 2001-02.
The public sector development programme (PSDP) allocation for 2002-02 for the universities, institutes and centres was Rs879 million against which an amount of Rs451.5 million has been provided to them, so far, she said.
Similarly, a sum of Rs884.8 million was released for the science and technology projects of the universities through the HEC/ministry of science and technology during 2001-02. Likewise, Rs1.2 billion was provided for the information technology projects of the universities for 2002-03. Out of this amount, Rs228.7 million has been released, so far, to the respective projects through the HEC.
An amount of Rs150 million has been released as special grant for development projects of the universities/institutes during current financial year 2002-03.
She said the government had also released a sum of Rs500 million (Rs250 million each for recurring and development) to the HEC for distribution among the universities, institutes and centres to cope with their financial requirements in addition to regular annual grants.
She, however, explained that no financial assistance was provided to private universities.