Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Like many other good initiatives taken up by the Supreme judiciary, it should also take action against the worsening situation of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Young PhD Doctors Association President Dr Sher Afzal said on Saturday.

He said in a statement that the federal government through HEC awarded dozens of indigenous and international scholarships for educational and research opportunity to Pakistani students and scholars wherein around 5,000 indigenous fellowship programmes worth Rs 1 million have been granted in the last three years.

Similarly, through the International Research Support Programme (IRSP), the federal government is investing around about Rs 1 million within six months abroad to complete research training.

HEC is providing need base opportunity by HEC Need Base Programme which is United States Agency for International Development-funded, and these will be Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Balochistani scholarships. In short, HEC is investing Rs 2 million to Rs 3 million on a single PhD nationally.

The statement added that as per HEC record on its official website, 5,536 PhDs nationally are produced within five years. Similarly, a huge amount is being invested on international programmes. The HEC has claimed to produce more 38,000 PhD scholars up to 2025.

The HEC will also provide an opportunity to PhD degree holders to adjust in foreign universities through the Interim PhD Fresh Programme (IPFP). In this programme, the HEC awards Rs 140,000 to awardee for one year.

It said that unfortunately, the universities do not create proper vacancies for young PhD doctors. Beside this, universities have unemployed young PhD doctors after successful IPFP such as Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (AAUR) and University of Agriculture Faisalabad, etc. The AAUR has fired more than 50 young PhD doctors after IPFP. Moreover, the applicants are waiting on the decision by the Selection Board for more than two years now.

The HEC has failed to implement its IPFP agreement in universities in an effective way. Moreover, the HEC has not properly recorded how many young PhDs are working in Pakistan.

Published in Daily Times, March 18^th 2018.