Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Senate of Pakistan has recommended that the devolution of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) should be implemented on real approaches in accordance with the 18th Constitutional Amendment, Daily Times has learnt.

The upper house of the Parliament issued such directives in light of a public petition filed by a university professor based in Balochistan.

The petition pleaded that “like other sectors, the 18th Constitutional Amendment should be implemented in higher education sector in true letter and spirit through confining role of Federal HEC merely to formulation of standards and enhancing legitimate role of provincial governments especially in funding and implementation of higher education policies”.

The Senate, after receiving the petition, called the federal HEC representatives and different other educationists in a meeting that was held under the chairmanship of Senator Mir Kabeer Ahmed Shahi last week. After a long deliberation, the committee recommended that “amendment of the Higher Education Ordinance 2002, in order to ensure that functions of the Commission devolved vide the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment should be transferred to the Provinces”.

According to available minutes of the Committee meeting, beside devolution, the Senate committee also barred HEC from interfering in universities matters without any solid reason to maintain academic autonomy. “The academic freedom and autonomy of the universities should be ensured and respected as guaranteed by Constitution of Pakistan and respective universities Acts,” directed the committee.

The 18th Amendment came into practice in 2012. Almost all other sectors followed the devolution accordingly. However, the matter of few institutions remained controversial since the time and the HEC was top of them.

Experts were of the view that non-implementation of the Constitution put the universities in confusion.

A senior official of the HEC, wising anonymity, informed that many things in the 18th Constitutional Amendment were not clear which might be one of many reasons for implementing the amendment in complete and real meaning.

Currently, the matter regarding devolution of HEC is in the court of the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

Since its inception, the CCI Sub-Committee had called nine meetings with each of them failing to reach any solution to the issue.

Recently, the Sub-Committee of CCI held a meeting chaired by Federal Education Minister Balighur Rehman that also failed to reach any conclusion. For instance, the documents stated, provinces’ stance over the matter was the same as before. The provinces said monitoring and devolution of HEC should remain only in federal territories.

“To the extent of setting standards of higher education in the country, the authority should be vested in the Federal HEC. However, the authority needs to be limited to the extent of creating standards whereas the functions of monitoring and evolutions of the institutions of higher education against these standards should vest with the provincial governments and provincial HEC,” the provincial representatives in the meeting contended.

In submission of its remarks, the Punjab government said that each province should have its own testing body for respective universities. It added that the accreditation of universities should also remain in the domain of provinces as stated in the 18th Amendment.

Published in Daily Times, February  24^th 2018.