Daily Times

In an important development, Minister for planning and development Ahsan Iqbal on Friday requested Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to stop proposed amendments in new legislation called Higher Education Commission (HEC) amendment bill, 2023.

As per HEC act, the Prime Minister of Pakistan is controlling authority of the HEC. The Planning Minister said in the letter that he is expecting the PM to restore the bill in its original shape and the bill was about to be tabled in the parliament without discussion and deliberation. “I hope that you will stop the bill,” reads the letter, available with Daily Times. He went on to write that the amendments to the NAB Ordinance were equivalent to stealing its independence. “The amendment will bring the HEC under the ministry of education,” he added.

As per available information, the government in January this year proposed some amendments in the HEC ordinance, 2002. The Cabinet Committee for the Disposal of Legislative Cases (CCLC), which is finalising the draft amendment bill, has sought the input from the Federal Ministry of Law and Parliamentary Affairs and was placed before the cabinet and subsequently and Parliament subsequently, in order to become the law. The vice chancellors’ committee has already condemned the move, saying that the said amendments not only limit the autonomous role of the institution, but also negate the basic principles of the federation.

The HEC was established as an autonomous national institution to regulate the affairs of public and private universities and colleges. The 1973 Rules of Business do treat higher education as a subject of the Education Ministry, but the Task Force on improvement of Higher Education in Pakistan that drafted the HEC Ordinance, 2002 recommended that HEC should be governed and managed independently, associated with the Ministry of Education but not controlled by it.