Daily Times

Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associataion (FAPUASA) Central President Dr Mahboob Hussain has demanded effective implementation of 18th Constitutional Amendment in higher education sector.

He demanded implementation through strengthening Provincial Higher Education Commissions in Punjab and Sindh and establishing provincial HECs in the remaining two provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on priority basis.

Referring to decisions of Council of Common Interests (CCI), supreme constitutional body, he emphasised over amending the respective acts of federal HEC and provincial HECs accordingly as the CCI has distributed higher education functions among federal and provincial governments.

He repeated the FAPUASA’s principled stance of ensuring autonomy of universities and HECs. He stressed upon the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government to constitute new search committees comprising of eminent academics with sound experience in public sector universities in order to ensure merit based transparent appointments of vice chancellors in line of commitments made by PTI in its election manifesto.

He said that ad-hocism and non-merit based appointments have adversely affected the performance of higher education sector. It is high time to learn from the past mistakes and ensure good governance in higher education sector through promoting a culture of merit and transparency. He announced that FAPUASA would monitor all the key appointments of VCs both at federal and provincial levels in order to ensure transparency.

He said that without consultations and involvement of all the concerned stakeholders, especially elected representatives of universities’ faculty in key policy decisions, the desired results could not be achieved in higher education sector of Pakistan.

Published in Daily Times, September 18^th 2018.