Daily Times

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has recommended that the administration of Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (PMAAUR) would return a triple fee inclusive all other charges to students if they get to experience substandard academic programmes.

The decision was taken after a high level meeting was held in HEC to review the current status of the banned MPhil and PhD academic programmes.

A senior official privy to the development said on condition of anonymity that the meeting was attended by senior officials of HEC and PMAAUR Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) director accompanied with some other officials of the university.

“After pointing out some objectionable programmes, the university administration was asked to provide some sort of documents so that a final decision could be taken in this regard,” he said adding that the university however could not present the documents and required legal details in the meeting recently held in the HEC.

The university administration requested for a little more time to produce complete documents and mend all deficiencies.

“So, the HEC categorically decided to ask the university not to intake admissions in the highlighted courses until final conclusion of the issue. In case of failure, it would be mandatory for the university to return the fee and all charges with additional amount as compensation to the students. It also asked to submit compliance report to the commission in this regard,” he added. In this way, he claimed, the university will avoid offering new admissions in contradiction with the set rules.

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 of these programmes lacked the set criteria of the commission. Out of a total 69 assessed programmes, the HEC directed to halt 29 of them and further banned intakes of 14 programmes while only 26 of these were Okayed by the committee.

The documents stated that the objectionable MPhil and PhD programmes 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 were also pointed out as lacking criteria. These programmes were recommended to stop further intake by the committee.

The documents stated that the reason for mostly halted degree programmes was shortage of PhD faculty in the respective departments and excessive enrolment in these programmes was another common cause regarding this matter.

Despite repeated attempts, PMAAUR Pro Vice chancellor Dr Sarwat N Mirza could not be approached for comments on the issue.

However, HEC Spokesperson Aayesha Ikram confirmed the development.

“It was decided by our concerned department to protect the future of innocent students who are usually deceived and misinformed,” she said.

Published in Daily Times, September 20^th 2018.