ISLAMABAD: The fate of around 43 substandard academic programmes being offered at Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (PMAAUR) will be decided by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in a high level meeting scheduled for today (Monday). According to the documents, a nine-member Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) committee of HEC in February examined over a 100 academic programmes of MSc, MPhil and PhD in the university and it found that 43 programmes of MSc, MPhil and PhD lacked the set criteria of the commission. Out of total 69 assessed programmes, the HEC directed to halt 29 such academic programmes and further banned intakes of 14 programmes while only 26 of these were Okayed by the committee. The sources said that after inspection by the QAA committee, the university’s administration rectified some of the deficiencies and informed the commission accordingly. As per standard operating procedures, it was mandatory for the HEC to give its final recommendations in this regard within two months, but the commission committee, a senior official said, visited PMAAUR last month with a delay of almost five months. The official added that due to the delay, the university’s administration is compelled not to offer new admissions for the academic session which will commence next month. HEC Chairman Dr Tariq Banuri expressed ignorance over the issue. “I do not have any idea regarding this matter and can let you know after checking it,” he said while talking exclusively to Daily Times. A senior official in the HEC said on the condition of anonymity that Dr Tariq Banuri is least bothered to look into such issues personally, instead he mostly depends on HEC Executive Director Dr Arshad Ali who himself is under probe for allegedly stealing research work in his PhD papers. PMAAUR Acting Vice Chancellor Dr Sarwat N Mirza confirmed the development. He was optimistic that all objectionable academic programmes would be cleared in the scheduled meeting. The documents stated that the objectionable programmes put on the agenda of the meeting are Agriculture Economics, Agriculture Engineering, Biotechnology, Biology, Economics, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Medicine & Surgery, Veterinary Microbiology, Veterinary Parasitology, Agriculture Extension, Animal Breeding & Genetics, Animal Nutrition, Anthropology, Biochemistry, Veterinary Surgery, Food Safety & Quality Management, Human Nutrition & Dietetics, Livestock Management, Management Sciences and last but not the least, Poultry Sciences. All these programmes were asked to be halted by the QAA committee. Besides this, the current status of the programmes including Computer Sciences, Education, Entomology, Remote Sensing & GIS, Sociology, Soil Sciences, Wildlife, Zoology, Environmental Sciences, Food Technology, Forestry and Plant Pathology would also be reviewed in the meeting. These programmes were recommended to stop further intake by the committee. Acting VC Dr Sarwat N Mirza said, “We received an official email from HEC around 5pm on Friday, asking for submission of more data of the highlighted programmes’ clearance,” adding that “we almost completed the draft in this regard and will table it in the scheduled meeting”. He said that “we made 100 percent compliance in the PhD degree programmes where shortage of faculty was pointed out by the Commission Committee”, adding that now the issue only stands in the MPhil degree programmes. “We still stick to our stance we followed from day one when inquiry had started as during the six-month gap, the entire batch graduated from the university and the student-teacher ratio has also mended in accordance with HEC set rules,” he said. Dr Sarwar N Mirza further said that now the university has maintained the student-teacher ratio in its research programmes. The acting vice chancellor said that he personally remained involved to do all this work and so after all these efforts, the new admissions are now totally done in accordance with the set criteria. He further said that “we never ever tried to bypass rules set by the HEC”. The documents stated that the reason for halting these programmes was due to shortage of PhD faculty in the respective departments while excessive enrolment was also reported. Published in Daily Times, September 17th 2018.