ISLAMABAD: Over years since transferring the educational matters to provinces under the 18th Constitutional Amendment, implementation with letter and sprite over this in the Higher Education Commission (HEC) could not be practiced, Daily Times has learnt.
According to the details, aftermath of 18th Amendment in the Constitution in 2010, the curriculum, syllabus, planning, centers of excellence and standards of education and policy matters in education sector including higher education are fixed as the domain of provincial governments as per previous 1935 Indian Act 1956, 1962 constitutions and 1972 interim constitution.
The practical picture in provinces and federal HECs presents otherwise side as the planning centers of excellence, standards of education and policy making being used by HEC Islamabad. The provincial HEC councils are totally dependent on the federal HEC in respect of policy making for their respective universities and Degree Awarding Institutions (DAIs).
Chairperson of the ten-member devolution committee Mir Kabeer Ahmed Shahi told the scribe that the government did not practically implement the 18th Constitutional Amendment. He said that in the amendment 18 federal ministries are notified to devolve in the provinces but “except few ministries, not a single has been devolved in practical meaning thus for. The government just changed the names of the devolved ministries nothing else and few other ministries transferred in which the authorities find their own benefits”, he claimed. Then acting chairperson of the HEC when the amendment was made in the Constitution, Imtiaz Gillani told Daily Times that the country’s constitution need another amendment in this regard because the current form of constitution is very vague and a common could not understand this.
While talking about Higher education sector, he claimed that it needs more clarity as confusion persists in many portions of the subject of higher education sector in the amended constitutions.
The Peshawar University Teachers Association (PUTA) in last week also held a protest demonstration wherein they demanded for the establishment of provincial higher education councils.
When Daily Times contacted PUTA President Dr Jamil Ahmad Chitrali said that it is dire need to implement over the said constitutional amendment. He maintained that there are 17 universities in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and establishment of a provincial HEC in KP is need of hour to deal with the several academic matters of these universities.
Chitrali further added that through this approach the many issues in the higher education sector would be resolved. The establishment of the provincial HECs is the compliance on Supreme Court (SC) judgment issued in 2012 in which the apex court directed for establishing the provincial HECs.
He said that this issue was also part of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government mandate when it elected in the general election 2013. “Despite passage of over 3 years, the PTI government also did nothing as per their claimed mandate”, he criticized.
Earlier, to pursuance of clause 9 of the article 270 AA, the federal government also constituted a 10 members Implementation Commission which was comprised of all the main parliamentary political parties. The said commission held many meetings to decide the powers and functions of Federal HEC as given under the HEC Ordinance, 2002.
According to the Para 36 of the report of the the Implementation Commission “the implementation Commission felt that most of those aimed at getting undue financial and administrative control of HEC over the universities were/could be charted by the federation and the provinces”.
Both HEC chairperson Dr Mukhtar Ahmed and chairperson of the Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) Dr Mohammad Nizamuddin were not available for their comment over the issue till filling of this new report.