Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) top brass is taking a lot of flak these days in the social media, especially on Facebook, over their lavish foreign tours.

Critics claim the commission has failed to provide jobs to PhD holders, but is at the same time spending most of its resources on unnecessary official visits.

The criticism started after a picture showing an HEC delegation visiting London was uploaded on the social media.

The HEC team was participating in ‘GOING GLOBAL-2017’ conference, held this week in London. According to the commission, the purpose of the conference was to debate the future of higher education. “The event provided a unique platform for knowledge sharing, connecting local, national, regional and global agendas, providing a global network for policymakers and practitioners working in the field of international education, supporting global thought leadership and a lot more,” HEC said.

The visiting delegation comprised HEC Chairperson Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, HEC Attestation and Accreditation Director General (DG) Tahir Abbas Zaidi, HEC Director Aayesha Ikram, GCU Faisalabad Vice Chancellor (VC) Dr Muhammad Ali Shah, Islamia College University Peshawar VC Dr Habibullah Khan, University of Gujrat VC Dr Ziaul Quyyum and Fatima Jinnah Women University Rawalpindi Registrar Marriyum Rab.

After the picture of the delegation was shared, faculty members of various universities criticised the delegation. They said that the commission was spending a lot on foreign tours, whereas PhD scholars were on the roads, protesting against joblessness.

One Facebook user Emm A Aar said: “Not something to be proud of when 256 PhDs are jobless and protesting outside HEC. Shame on the education system and their false promises.”

Last week, a number of PhD scholars had staged a protest outside the HEC. According to them, 256 scholars who had completed their degrees under scholarship schemes were without any job.

These protesting scholars said that before availing the scholarship, they had signed an agreement with the HEC. “Under the agreement, we were bound to serve in Pakistani universities for five years. But the HEC is now providing us only one year’s job under an interim placement programme,” they said.

Adnan Ali, who according to his Facebook profile belongs to the University of Gujrat, said that in the past 15 years, the HEC had even failed to get a Pakistani university in the top 600 world universities. “There is no Pakistani university thus far in the list,” he said.

Another user, Faheem Tariq, said that the behaviour of the HEC was “shameless”.

Sumaira Tabassum, a PhD scholar, said that PhD scholars were protesting against HEC over its poor performance. “After passage of one year, my name has not been added to any PhD directory. The HEC did not verify the degree. Nor did the IPFP sent an offer letter. These delaying tactics are just despicable,” she said.

Some of the critics also expressed displeasure over the admission policies. Sulaiman Ishaq said policies regarding admission were not favourable. He requested the commission to improve the mechanism.

A few users also praised the commission. Shamsher Khan maintained that HEC had created many opportunities for all Pakistani students.

According to official sources, the number of official foreign tours of the HEC management had gained momentum in the last couple of months of the financial year 2016-17.

“This usually happens because the management fears most of their funds will lapse by the end of the fiscal year. This is done to utilise the maximum amount of funds,” he said.

He quoted the example of previous year’s budget. “As per the Federal Audit Report 2015-16, 47 percent of the HEC’s total development budget — Rs 1324.67 million out of Rs 2762.30 million – had not been utilised,” he said.