Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The public does not appear satisfied on the latest version of the Higher Education Commission (HEC)’s official website which they found as not user-friendly. Not just this, the people say it is too much complicated and brimful with many flaws, Daily Times has learnt.

The policy making body of the HEC altered the old version of its official website to form a new one in June this year. The users including faculty members, students, researchers, social workers and others from across the country visited the website for seeking information and updates which they require.

A visitor John Nash, Assistant Director (QEC) at the Northern University Nowshera, commented on the site, saying that this new version of the HEC website was not user friendly whereas the old version was easier to work with.

For example, he said: “I wanted to download the revised curriculum of MS Mathematics which I could not locate it on the HEC website. Nosh also faced trouble to search the QA proforma. He requested for providing him the guidelines about the HEC website’s (latest) operation.

Like Nash, Faiz Sultan Sair from the University of Gujrat, also faced difficulty while searching the same information on the commission’s website and reverted to the old version.

“The old version was much easier to work with,” Sabir claimed.

Sufaid Khan, who works at the Instituto de Química UNESP Araraquara, added that “this new version does not work out well.” Khan actually wanted to know the “IPFP program”. But according to the message he left on the HEC website, there is no option for this (in the new version) to cognize about the program.

Another user Gul Wshah termed it “a very bad and poor website”. While criticising the HEC officials concerned, Wshah said, “I don’t know what you people are doing”. Umar Farooq Kamboh, the Strategic Planning Officer at a government department required information about MS in engineering. He asked the HEC on its website that this (MS engineering) could be called as M.Phil in engineering or not but so far he has not been informed about his query.

Usman Arif from the Virtual University is requesting online access to the HEC for an equivalence certificate which his university has recommended him.

But due to not being online, Arif still awaits for this certificate. He did have not the option but to visit the HEC’s main office in Islamabad.

Latif Khattak, a lecturer at Khushal Khan Khattak University, Karak faced a similar difficulty while seeking the status of his MS degree. And all this happened due to the unavailability of the information on the HEC website.

According to the comments he left on the website, Khattak wanted to know whether his degree was MPhil or not. He required this status for his official use.

Asif Ali Ansari, Admn Assistant at the Allama Iqbal Open University, wanted to know about the link or details about “the HEC’s minimum criteria for admission in MS/MPhil and PhD programs” but even he failed to get this information online. According to an investigation, hundreds of people expressed dissatisfaction over the latest version of the commission and several others asked for some kind of information.

Very surprisingly they (users) were disappointed in getting a reply from the officials of the concerned wing of the HEC.

Another most criticised modification in the website is that it declared it mandatory for users to get themselves registered for asking some kind of assistance. Even after the successful registration they have not been informed for months about the queries they had asked. HEC Chairperson, Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, when contacted, said that altered website was a “trial version”. It is being further modified.