Daily Times

SUKKUR: It is an irony that there is a wide gap between government and private educational institutions, remarked Acting Vice Chancellor Institute of Business Administration (IBA) University, Zahid Hussain Khand.

Addressing faculty and students of different universities of Sindh on ‘Higher Education Commission (HEC)’ regional showcasing event for universities of Sindh’, aiming to celebrate 15 years (2002-2017) of HEC he said to overcome this gap, Sukkur IBA University was running ten community colleges throughout upper Sindh, while two IT colleges have been established in district Khairpur.

Our National Talent Hunt Programme was aimed to bring underprivileged students of government schools at par with those coming from better private schools. Under this programme, 75 students each from all four provinces have been selected, and were being taught English, Mathematics and Computer under a six months foundation programme and during that period they would also get Rs 4,000 per month each as food allowance.

Those who would maintain good percentage would be selected for regular programme of four years, he added.

Sukkur IBA has become degree awarding institute in 2006 and since then it was moving forward with the help of Sindh government and HEC.

Regional Director HEC Javaid Memon urged upon billionaires to come forward and invest in education sector. He said that we needed to establish more universities and campuses to overcome shortage of institutions. At present, we are providing higher education to three million students, which is lowest figure and in this regard, we have to ‘do more’, he added.

At higher educational institutions, we should also give some time for counselling of students, which will help them in identifying and solving problems.

Besides we also need to increase faculty in higher education institutions, which at present is only ten thousand.

Published in Daily Times, September 27^th 2017.