Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has not updated its website for the last many years.

The HEC official website is currently showing an old message under the name of President Mamnoon Hussain. Also, the HEC has yet to post Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s message on its website despite the fact that his government has completed half of its five-year tenure.

The message available on the HEC website under President Mamnoon Hussain’s name reads: “We are targeting 60% literacy level by the year 2005, raising it to over 90% by 2015, and producing 1,500 PhDs per year, mainly in science subjects by the year 2009. The present position of students entering higher education is to be enhanced from 2.6% to 5% by 2009.” The message gives wrong figures of the national population i.e. 150 million, which has now increased to 190 million.

As a matter of fact, Hussain took oath as 12th president of Pakistan in September 2013 whereas the figures mentioned on the HEC website highlighted the targets set for 2005 and 2009.

The message of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is the controlling authority of the commission, is not available on the website so far. Same is the case with the HEC executive director.

As per clause 10(x) of the HEC Ordinance 2002, one of the main functions of the commission is to “collect information and statistics on higher education and institutions as it may deem fit and may publish it,” but the HEC website does not have any data on its website. It has not updated the information related to the number of PhD scholars and graduates after 2010.

Furthermore, as per the HEC website, its annual reports till financial years 2012-13 are available.

The commission has committed another violation of the HEC law by not preparing and submitting annual reports for financial years of 2013-14 and 2014-15 to the prime minister that is required as per clause 14 (4) of the HEC Act, which states, “The Commission shall, after the end of every financial year, submit to the Controlling Authority the audited annual statement of accounts, together with the report of the Auditor-General of Pakistan.”

A large number of students, researchers and policymakers visits the official website of the HEC, which has an outdated data and wrong massages of the officials. The unavailability of data is creating problems for the policymakers.