Daily Times

The students belonging to different Universities on Wednesday staged a protest against non-uniformed policies of Higher Education Commission (HEC) regarding classes online as precautionary measures during Covid-19.

A group of around 50 students gathered outside the HEC’s office H-9 Islamabad to press the authorities concerned in favour of their demands.

The students said that either the online classes should be held all universities across the country or all varsities should announce for semester break.

“The HEC as regulatory body should compel all universities to follow the uniform policy in this difficult time”, they demanded adding that commencement of classes online by some varsities while rest are not offering is quite unjust.

The students also demanded for special relief in semester fee have already been charged by their respective varsities.

When contacted Chairman HEC Dr Tariq Banuri said “I am in a research-related meeting. If you send any questions by WhatsApp, I might be able to respond. Can’t talk, though.” The Daily Times subsequently forwarded questions to Chairman related to protesting students’ demands. He, however, give no response until filing of this report.

Another senior official of the Commission said that to students’ demands are thoroughly unrelated to the HEC as it is only keeling check on universities regarding quality of the studies they are offering to their students online. “The HEC just provide some particular guidelines as per conducted inspection”, the official claimed adding that it has no more interference in all internal matters of the Universities.

Some students said that as per the university administration’s directions the6 are ought to attend online classes whatsoever the circumstances are. While their homes’ environment for this task in totally un-conducive.

A student said that he used to be in the hostel and was able to work there and in the library. Now that he is home, he is finding it hard to attend classes, participate in classes, and do the assignments that need to be written while working from home. He is always conscious of household chatter going on in the background and is never sure when something absurd, outrageous, inappropriate or just plain distracting might be said.

Another student, Shehbaz, who is attending online classes but not participating in class discussions, while sharing his experience said that the environment in his home was very noisy. “There was no notion of private space in my household and this is a biggest test for me to attend online classes,” he said.

Educationists say to set some certain sort of SOPs within home, provision of space and silence background to their children during online classes ere to allow them to learn would surely impactful. However, they added, on the other hand HEC and other authorities concerned seemed non-serious over this issue as they never develop some stern policy in order to implement their claims in real means. The virus hit out over 200 countries, affected millions of persons and killed hundreds of thousands of patients across the world including some powerful countries like US and China but besides other concrete measures to cope with the pandemic, they wittily come up with reasonable solution to save their education sector.

However, Pakistan is among the rare countries where main stakeholders like HEC and Federal Education Ministry are more interested in making tall claims and cared less about practical consequences. Both the bodies are focusing on mere issuance of statements.

During this difficult time span, a lot of students have been talking of access to internet. This issue created akin digital divide among the students particularly in those who are pursuing to higher educational studies. The experts say it relatively easy to remedy but due to poor management of concern quarters it become hard-hitting deal.

The HEC is the body that supposed in its Act 2002 to provide policy guidelines for over 200 public and private sector universities in the country.

Meanwhile, the HEC in a press release the Covid-19 crisis has affected many lives and disrupted all systems and institutions, including educational institutions, but the forced changes can be harnessed to bring about an increase in efficiency and quality of services at HEC.

While speaking to HEC’s all-staff meeting held online, Chairman Dr Tariq Banuri said that the Commission is committed to using the crisis in order to automate its process and systems, simplifying application procedures for universities, faculty members, and students, and moving towards greater efficiency.

The Chairman directed all the HEC Divisions to take necessary steps for “re-engineering of all HEC operations and processes” as per the current requirements, ensuring transparency, clarity, and precision in them. He emphasised that all the lapses, in terms of quality in all HEC operations, must be identified and addressed. He said all HEC Divisions have been asked to ensure complete online readiness and online access, including by taking advantage of other HEC programs, especially the Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS), the National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE), and the Education Testing Council (ETC).