Education is an important factor for socio-economic development of any country. 'Pakistan Education' is an effort to raise
and discuss issues related to education for building of sound youth.....
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) - a UK based ranking agency -has published World Universities Rankings of 2013. QS website is http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings
As per said list, seven
Pakistani universities are placed in the list of top 250 Asian
universities and three Pakistani universities are in top 200
world universities.
According
to ranking list, Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad is
ranked at 119, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST),
Islamabad at 120, Aga Khan University (AKU), Karachi at 152, Lahore
University of Management Sciences (LUMS) at 191, University of
Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore at 200, University of Karachi at 201 and University of the Punjab, Lahore at 250.
Whereas, three Pakistani universities,
University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) is at 142, Pir Mehr
Ali Shah-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (PMAS-AAUR) at 152 and
Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad is at 172 in top 200
world universities in disciplines of agriculture and forestry.
Education
experts describe this achievement to the HEC's reforms and
dedicated work by university faculty and researchers.
A two -day V.C. Committee meeting has been held at Higher Education Commission, Islamabad from March 26, 2012, which was chaired by Chairperson VC Committee Syed Imtiaz Hussain Gillani (Vice-chancellor of KP University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar) and first day was inaugurated by Federal Minister for Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh.
This was 10th Vice Chancellors` Committee meeting, which was attended by Vice-Chancellors/Rectors of around 130 universities of the country. are participating in the two-day meeting.
While speaking at the occassoin, Dr. Sheikh said investment in higher education has resulted in creation of employment, initiation of research and socio-economic development. He, however, asked the universities to utilize their available infrastructure to generate finances/get financial support.
The Committee, unanimously, desired from the Government to increase budget for higher education upto four per cent of the GDP.
The Higher Education Commission is being chopped up and a new body is being constituted namely Comission for Standard of Higher Education... The Chairman of Implementation Commission, Mr. Raza Rabbani has spoke in Senate today regarding devolution of the Higher Education Commission to provinces...
It has been apprehended that the degrees of Pakistan will not be recognized abroad, the standards of higher education would be drastically drowned, millions of dollars of foreign funding for higher educaiton will be stopped, scholarships will be stopped and universities will submerge in case the HEC is chopped....
The Higher Education Commission was established in September 2002 as a regulatory body of higher eduction, in lieu of the University Grants Commission with the purpose to lay down and formulate procedures, policies and guiding principles for improvement of higher education sector in the country. [HEC website www.hec.gov.pk refers]
As per eighteenth constitutional amendment amedment's point 101, following clauses have been inserted in Part II of Federal Legislative Lists (Schedule IV to the Constitution) [18th amedment can be found at http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/co...mendment.html]
[4. Electricity.
5. Major ports, that is to say, the declaration and delimitation of such ports, and the constitution and powers of port authorities therein.
6. All regulatory authorities established under a Federal law.
7. National planning and national economic coordination including planning and coordination of scientific and technological research.
8. Supervision and management of public debt.
9. Census.
10. Extension of the powers and jurisdiction of members of a police force belonging to any Province to any area in another Province, but not so as to enable the police of one Province to exercise powers and jurisdiction in another Province without the consent of the Government of that Province; extension of the powers and jurisdiction of a police force belonging to any Pronvice to railway areas outside that Province.
11. Legal, medical and other professions.
12. Standards in institutions for higher education and research, scientific and technical institutions.
13. Inter-provincial matters and co-ordination.]
Its evident from above that the HEC has been inserted to be a federal entity. However, the Implementation Commission is bent upon destroying an institution which has developed good reputation worldover where other instituitons of Pakistan are termed as corrupt etc...
We all have to try together to save this institution...
The Higher Education Commission has issued NOC/Recommendation Letter to proposed DHA National Institute of Health & Social Sciences, Islamabad and Capital University of Science & Technology (CUST), Islamabad for grant of Charter in private sector from Federal Government.
DHA National Institute is a project of DHA Education Foundation Islamabad and envisages to start with offering degrees of B.Sc. Nursing and Midwifery and hopes to provide qualtiy education in association with Harvard Inc.
While, Capital University of Sciences & Technology is a project of Mohammad Ali Jinnah Education Trust. The Islamabad Campus of Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Karachi is being uplifted/upgraded to the level of CUST and this university will provide education in versatile disciplines.
The HEC has launched Interim Placement of fresh Ph.D. programme, wherein the Ph.D. degree holders/Scholars from foreign universities will be given jobs in government universities under Tenure Track System.
Such Ph.D. degree holders will be given post of Assitant Professor and pay of Rs.80,000/- and will serve for a period of one year. During this time, they can get research grant of Rs.0.5 million as research grant for carrying out any research programme.
Detail of the programme is available at http://www.hec.gov.pk/InsideHEC/Divisions/HRD/FacultyHiringPrograms/IPFPHD/Pages/Default.aspx
Dr. Javiad R. Laghari has assumed charge of Chairmanship of the Higher Education Commission.
Previously he was President of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science & Technology (SZABIST), Karachi. He also remained Senator in Senate of Pakistan from March 2006 to July 2009.
He has also served as the Direcor of Graduate Strudies and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engg in State University of New York, Buffalo. He has published over 120 research papers and presented over 70 papers at International conferences.
He is recepient of Distinguished Leadership Award 1987, IEEE award of Leadership and Dedicated Study 1994 and Tamgha-e-Imtiaz 1998.
The recent government decision, as carried by the national media the other day, to shelve a plan by the Higher Education Commission to set up four more engineering universities in the country has earned criticism from certain quarters. Being seen together with reports of HEC about to have its wings clipped, there are people who see some kind of conspiracy being hatched somewhere. The perception may not be entirely true. In fact, it is misplaced on several counts.
The plan that is said to have been shelved was worth Rs160 billion and was to be completed in phases over a decade in collaboration with Germany, Austria, Italy and China. Under the project, the faculty for the universities was to be recruited from these four countries which had set up a sort of consortium for the purpose. The degrees issued by the proposed institutions were to carry the stamp of the foreign universities, enabling their graduates to compete in the international job market.
With curriculum and examination system also falling under the purview of foreign consultants and the four collaborating partners setting up technology parks to promote research, it, indeed, sounded good. The general argument is that Pakistani students would have been able to achieve foreign qualification at far more affordable tuition fee than they would otherwise spend on going abroad.
The figures being quoted on the quantum of foreign exchange individuals and families have to dish out every year on foreign education are pretty staggering, running up to Rs80 billion. But the amount naturally was not being extricated from the national kitty; it includes money earned by students while doing jobs to sustain their budgets. The amount of Rs160 billion — the cost of the shelved project — however was to be spent from the exchequer and it is worth arguing that it could have been much better utilised by improving the already existing universities on the ground.
The technology parks, though impressive by their very nomenclature, could, and should, have been localised by improving the equation between the academia and the industry which for long has been the missing link within the realm of professional education. The project did have its plus points, but when tested against the touchstone of reality, it was more flamboyant than the country could afford.
The pseudo-royal manner in which the HEC had been squandering money has already started to bear results that had been feared all the way through. The University of Karachi, for instance, has been facing a financial crunch for the past few months to the extent where it is struggling to pay the salaries of its 3,000-strong work force, including faculty and administrative staff.
Cut in budgets and grants to institutions of higher learning across the land means the KU is not alone in its predicament. In cases where a reduction has not been announced in as many words — as with, say, the NED University of Engineering and Technology — inordinate delay in the release of budgetary allocations is being practised which, for all practical purposes, is an unsaid cut because we are already in the second half of the fiscal year and, given the economic uncertainty, there is no chance of a sudden release of all outstanding dues. Said or unsaid, the lavish HEC spending of the past is making life difficult for universities today.
Established in 2002 through a presidential ordinance, the HEC came up with ideas that were perhaps fantastic on paper, but did little to have a direct impact on the learning process in the country. For instance, sending people to countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia to do their doctorate was hardly the stuff of a visionary. This was just one of the many steps that the HEC took in the name of promoting higher education. There were funds at its disposal and they were thrown away with gusto. How fancy ideas consumed precious funds could be well illustrated with happenings in the realm of medicine.
The mushroom growth of institutions imparting medical education in the country — 68 thus far, with 10 awaiting the relevant NOC — tell its own tale and the activities of the private sector in this regard is yet another sorry tale within the spectrum of medical education, but it is pertinent to focus for the time being on medical institutions in the public sector for which the authorities and the HEC are directly responsible.
It is a rather long-winding yarn of political expediency and vested interests. To have such a high number of medical universities is beyond comprehension, especially in a country where not a single medical college in the public sector happens to be a fulltime teaching institute. Even when they were colleges, they were basically producing glorified MBBS quacks in enormous numbers because of the lack of teaching focus and the inexplicable reluctance to update the course content. By the looks of it, instead of upgrading the syllabus, successive governments have found it much easier to upgrade colleges to the university level.
Dr Shershah Syed, a former head of Pakistan Medical Association and a leading figure in the effort to streamline the whole gamut of graduate and post-graduate education, is so upset that he finds the medical education system in the country to be standing “on the brink of a virtual collapse”.
In the early days of the Musharraf regime, he recalls, a retired lieutenant-general was given the task of running the provincial health ministry in Sindh. He had been a graduate of Liaquat Medical College at Jamshoro near Hyderabad, and his assignment provided, among other things, an opportunity to revive old friendships. “On their part, some senior professors at the LMC found a good opportunity, as they often do in such cases, to have their friend do a few things for them,” he says.
They floated the idea of establishing the country’s first medical university. Apart from their own personal interest, the project also had political ambitions as it envisaged taking all medical colleges in the province, including, of course, those in Karachi, under its wings. To make it palatable to all concerned, it was reasoned that the proposed university would organise medical education along scientific lines in the province and, in doing so, it would be able to set an example for the other provinces to follow.
Swayed by the idea of being a pioneer in the country, he moved with the project in such haste that no feasibility report was in place when they went public with the project. The Liaquat University of Health and Medical Sciences came into existence by an executive order and the HEC provided the millions that were needed. The series of events that followed the establishment of LUHMS is as interesting as it is unfortunate, stresses Dr Shershah.
Immediately after the announcement by the Sindh government, the health minister of Punjab decided to have a medical university in his province. If Sindh could have a medical university, why not Punjab? The argument was logical enough. Thus came into existence the Punjab University of Health Sciences.
Back in Sindh, the narrative is picked by Dr Habibur Rahman Soomro, the sitting PMA boss, who recalls that with the appointment of a new provincial governor, the idea of a medical university in Karachi was floated by the professors of Dow Medical College. Another executive order came around without any proper feasibility report that set up the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) and the HEC was, again, there to fund the project.
Now with Sindh having two medical universities, it was ground enough to prepare for a similar status in Punjab to restore parity. The King Edward Medical College took the lead and was soon converted into a university. The provincial government made the announcement and the HEC rushed ahead with funds, says Dr Soomro who regrets the fact that nobody bothered to stop for a while and see whether or not a medical university was required at all.
With Sindh and Punjab having a war of numbers, it was only a matter of time before the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan started feeling neglected. As the two smaller provinces, they had always been denied their rights, but they were not going to miss out on this score. Khyber Medical College in Peshawar and Bolan Medical College in Quetta soon had themselves alleviated to the status of medical universities.
With so many universities across the land, one hoped everybody would have been feeling satisfied, but that is not the case. There has been no assessment done on what effective change, if at all, has been brought about by the hundreds of millions that have been spent on these fancy universities.
Against such a backdrop, it is only logical that the government is said to be actively considering an end to the autonomous status of the HEC and its placement under the Ministry of Education. However, there are reasons to believe that, at best, it might be nothing more than making HEC the scapegoat because the sitting government itself is continuing to move on the ill-advised path.
The latest example is the elevation of the Chandka Medical College, which has always struggled to build even a baseline reputation, to the status of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Medical University. According to published reports, a plan costing Rs5 billion has been sent to the federal government to take care of the construction of the new campus alone.
Besides, there are also plans to upgrade the People’s Medical College in Nawabshah to People’s International University for Women at a cost of Rs4 billion. Larkana and Nawabshah being important political locations in the present setup, there is every likelihood that the proponents of the two plans will have their dreams come true.
The same is the case with southern Punjab to which belongs the incumbent prime minister. University status for Nishtar Medical College and the setting up of an independent medical college for women in Multan are already in the air and, by the looks of it, an executive order to that effect will soon pop up on the surface.
Higher education, like so many other things in the country, is under a pretty dark cloud at present. One can but hope that the decision to reconsider the plan for engineering universities will provide the silver lining and someone somewhere in the corridors of power will find the time and the inclination to revisit the logic of medical universities as well. For once, there is no harm in hoping against hope.
The HEC established a National Committee on Examination Systems (NCES) in 2004 to review the existing examination policies, analyze weaknesses and propose improvements.The Committee has developed ‘Policy Guidelines for Semester System’ to encourage universities/degree awarding institutions to gradually shift to the new system of examination.
The Guidelines have been circulated to all public sector universities for feedback.Simultaneously the Learning Innovation Division of HEC has conducted various seminars and workshops and trained around 400 university/DAI faculty members for better implementation of teaching/learning process.
Enforcing quality in higher education is considered a very important area to be addressed by the academia. Apropos to quality in higher education, there are several issues that need to be resolved.
The primary issue is ascertaining the delivery of quality in higher education. Is this being determined through the number of employed graduates or are there other career achievements, which constitute the baseline for determining the delivery of quality in higher education? Another issue is the determination of the ideal graduate. Is this being determined while keeping in focus character education or through the measurement of knowledge outcomes only? Another issue is the cultivation of technical and general expertise.
Van Damme, D. in his paper ‘Quality Assurance in an International Environment: National and International Interests and Tensions’ described quality as a definition having no “growing” consensus. Van Damme further argued that despite having numerous systems of quality assurance and possible criteria, there must exist a “concept of academic quality that recognises variety and diversity”.
Unlike quality assurance parameters being employed in industrial domains, quality assurance parameters in higher education need to be both qualitative and quantitative. Student satisfaction, induction of ethical and moral content, professional and teaching competence of faculty members, the working environment of faculty and administrative staff, remunerations for faculty members, effective and demand oriented curriculum design, academia liaison with industry, timely and effective coursework and teacher evaluations, availability of updated text and reference material and degree of access to novel studies are some of the important qualitative parameters that need to be focused in parallel to quantitative parameters such as the student-teacher ratio, lecture capacity, laboratory and library venues and magnitude of computing and related equipment.
Carrying the assessment of the degree of student satisfaction is dependent upon the variables that directly effect students. In Astin’s (1993) book, What Matters in College, the author investigated five such variables, namely, career development, learning ecologies, student beliefs, values and attitudes that impact student satisfaction in college. Albeit private sector institutions imparting higher education in Pakistan are concentrating in maximizing students’ satisfaction, most of the public sector institutions and universities are still far off from providing even the most basic ingredients for maximizing student’s satisfaction.
It must be realised that student satisfaction cannot only be achieved through improving teaching methodology. There are several other complex parameters apart from teaching methodology. Some of these parameters include student-centred instructional resources and methodology, the student’s life on campus, personal, career and academic counseling, stress management and relevance of the coursework to everyday life. Numerous studies have concluded that student satisfaction and retention in an institute delivering higher education are directly proportional to each other.
Induction of ethical and moral content in the overall scheme of study is another important ingredient for enforcing quality in higher education. Higher educational institutions should be acting as bastions of ethical conduct. They should be a place where the students can determine and practice their personal ethics code that will guide them in their professional and personal lives. The decisions being made within the administration of higher education institutions are not only decisions affecting the entire academic community including faculty, staff, students, and other stakeholders, but are the models of ethical consideration for all involved, and should serve as examples for overall society.
Higher education has the role of equipping students with ethical values, including the underlying concepts, analytical skills to assist in making sound judgment required for decision making, a comprehensive overview of ethical norms and nomenclature, and a sense of responsibility towards the academic community in specific and society in general.
In this context each classroom will not only be acting as a place for acquiring and sharing knowledge but also a laboratory for practicing the process of decision making, and of analytically assessing trade offs related to the workplace, interpersonal relationships and personal lives. Unfortunately most of the traditional public universities in Pakistan are infected with the politics syndrome. This syndrome exists both within faculty and student communities. A once leading public sector information technology institution in Lahore fell victim to such politics and instead of becoming a centre of excellence, it became a den of devouring politics. The private sector, which was once immune to this syndrome, has also started getting affected. For establishing an ethical environment, it is rudimentary for both the public and the private sector to vaccinate their institutions against the politics syndrome by administrating the dose of honesty, respect, justice and accountability.
Effective and demand-oriented curriculum design is one of the most important steps in inducing quality in higher education. Curriculum as defined by Daniel Tanner (1980) is “the planned and guided learning experiences and intended learning outcome, formulated through the systematic reconstruction of knowledge and experiences, under the auspices of the school, for the learners’ continuous and willful growth in personal social competence.”
Through various studies, the definition of “curriculum” can be further extended as body of knowledge aimed at the needs and demands of specific learners entailing detailed procedures for implementation.
Ralph W. Tyler signifies three areas to be addressed while designing a curriculum. These are the “nature and structure of knowledge”, “need of the society” and “need of the learner”. Ralph also proposed the assessment of the specific educational purposes to be attained, educational experiences for the attainment of these purposes, organisation of these experiences and degree to which the purposes are attained.
Based upon Ralph Model for designing curriculum, Madeus, G.F., & Stufflebeam, D.L. (1989), developed an inverted pyramid for illustrating the curriculum development process. The pyramid starts with the presentation of philosphy of education leading towards goals and aims, thus establishing general instructional objectives resulting into specefic instructional objectives and outcomes, resulting into task analysis, content selection and learning activities.
It is a common practice that at the time of course allocation, the teachers are asked to develop course content. They usually develop it through accessing the table of contents of the textbook without the assessment of any learning outcomes and then present it to their students. If we carefully analyse the Tylor model, content selection is among the last stages of curriculum design.
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has done a commendable job by providing curriculum guidelines and standards to all public and private sector institutions, having flexibility for change in accordance to the needs and demands of the learner, industry and the overall society.
Enforcing quality in higher education is also not possible without the adequate assessment of the professional and teaching competence of the faculty. It must be realised that it is not necessary that an expert in a particular domain is an expert teacher of that domain also. It is also not necessary that a faculty member adept in teaching undergraduate courses will always be adept in teaching post-graduate courses.
Traditionally in most of the public and private sector higher education institutions in Pakistan, a teacher is assessed after course allocation. And this assessment is made either near the midterm examination or immediately after it. In principal, a teacher’s teaching and professional competencies should be assessed before the course is allocated. In this regard, Pearson’s model for assessing teacher’s competencies suggests three parameters for assessing a competent teacher.
These are standards for teaching the content satisfactorily, the skills required for meeting the standards and the degree of possession of the required skills. During course allocation, a grid based on these three parameters can be constructed along with the appropriate weights for various standards and skills. This will help in the quantification of the qualitative competencies, which will further enable the making of rational and ethical decisions. It is important to realise that course allocation is the most pivotal procedure and must not be based upon arbitrary grounds.
The working environment for faculty and administration staff also constitutes as an important ingredient in the overall recipe for enforcing quality in higher education. The working environment should be conducive for promoting effective teaching, scholarly gains and community sharing of knowledge resources. It must be realised that faculty being the most fragile and sensitive element of any higher educational institution, are deputed with the most daunting task of educating pupils, leading towards the progress of their careers. Hence an environment based upon mutual respect, professional norms, adequate remuneration and career growth is necessary for flourishing intellectual efforts.
In the present era, higher educational institutions are not only places for imparting education but in actual centres for creating enterprise knowledge and solutions to the problems of industry. Hence it is empirical for higher educational institutions to develop multi-purpose liaison with the industry in order to ascertain the problem areas of the industrial stakeholders and assessment of appropriate solution.
As in charge of the industrial liaison programme at one of the leading public institutions, I had the chance to interact with small and medium-sector enterprises for the assessment of their information technology needs in 2001. It was interesting to note that approximately 85 per cent of the sector was requiring information technology solutions and demanded for the institutions assistance. As a result they were provided both solutions, which in turn created the demand of the manpower to execute those solutions. In this way all the graduates of fall 2001 of that institution were provided jobs by the industry.
Some academicians argue that industry is not demanding solutions from the higher education institutions. In my humble opinion, the academic institutions are not really trying to assess the industry needs and are just engaged in delivering lectures. Developing industrial liaison programmes are pivotal for the achievement of the quality goal in higher education.
Higher education institutions in Pakistan have ample opportunities to excel due to the availability of students with abilities to conceive and work. It is to be realised that keeping in view the literacy rate, the students registering for higher education have enormous potential as they reached this level of education after a tedious journey anyway. Their potential only needs to be utilised in a planned and progressive way. We the members of the academic community have the responsibility to show them the right direction at the right time so that they can harness their abilities for achieving greater national interest.
Ms Shehnaz Wazir Ali has been made new Chairperson of Higher Education Commission.The Chairman, HEC holds status of a Federal Minister. She was holding slot of Special Assistance to Prime Minister on Social Sector.
Previously, she was Executive Director of the PakistanCentre for Philanthropy. She started her career as a primary school teacher in 1965 and held different positions in her life, e.g. a teacher; Principal, LahoreAmericanSchool; MNA; Minister of State for Education; Special Assistant to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Senior Education Specialist in World Bank. After general elections 2008, Ms Shehnaz became MNA on women seat from Pakistan People Party. She is also member of National Assembly Standing Committees on Finance and Revenue; Economic Affairs & Statistics; and Planning & Development.
She is also trustee of Nasra Schools’ Board.The Trust was set up by her mother Nasra Wazir Ali and uncle Zafarullah Malik in 1949. Her family remained serving the nation through making avenues for education of all and sundry especially the neglected classes.
Ms Shahnaz Wazir Ali holds a Master's Degree in Education from the University of Arkansas, USA and also a Master's Degree in Education Administration from Trenton College, New Jersey, USA. Also she has a Diploma in Principal's Certification from the HarvardUniversity, Cambridge, USA. Her Bachelor's degree in Mass Communication is from the AmericanUniversity, Washington.
Prof Dr Wolfgang Voelter is a professor in EberhardKarlaUniversity, Tuebingen, Germany. He has been decorated with the Hilal-i-Pakistan and Sitara-i-Pakistan. He has written an article, which is published in daily Dawn on November 23, 2008 titled 'the Golden period', which is reproduced as under:
For weeks now, I have followed the strange and mean campaigns of some Pakistani scientists and politicians against the efforts of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and its former Chairman Prof Dr Atta-ur-Rahman. The accusations are based on such meanness, malice or incompetence that as a friend of Pakistan and being involved for almost 35 years in the higher education of this country and having had the privilege of being one of the very few foreign scientists honoured by the Government of Pakistan with Civil Awards, I feel obliged to break my silence.
In 1974, when I was sent to Pakistan on an identification trip by the German Government to look for a cooperation partner, I visited about 15 heads of research institutions throughout Pakistan, and, strongly disappointed, I found a vast scientific desert in the country: sophisticated instruments, donations from abroad, out of order, empty libraries, laboratories lacking chemicals and frustrated professors.
But there was one exception, the so-called Postgraduate Institute of Chemistry, KarachiUniversity, founded by Prof Salimuzzaman Siddiqui and developed later by Dr Atta, and I could only confirm the impressions of the journalist, late Azim Kidwai, who wrote in Dawn: “One has to visit to believe it. There is at least one scientific institution in Pakistan that is comparable to any of that breed in the most-advanced countries; not only the way it is equipped and maintained, but also the way, people work in it. There appears no element of lousiness. Dedication, hard work, excellence pour into test tubes.”
These experiences made the selection of my cooperation partner easy. Based on my 700-page expert report, finally five million DM were granted by the German government for the Karachi-Tuebingen Project. The overwhelming success of the HEJ Research Institute in Karachi, Dr Atta’s intellectual capacity, dedication and enthusiasm about science and his keenness to eliminate lousiness and ineptitude were the reasons for Prof Atta’s merit-based nomination as minister of Science and Technology and later on as federal minister and chairman of the HEC.
And a miracle happened. The scenario of education, science and technology in Pakistan changed dramatically after Prof Atta’s nomination as never before in the history of Pakistan. The chairperson of the Senate Standing Committee on Education recently announced it as “Pakistan’s golden period in higher education.”
Due to Dr Atta’s efforts in a short period of two years, between 2000 to 2002, Pakistan made spectacular progress in Information Technology and became the first in the entire region to have its own education satellite — Paksat 1 — in space.
In a short period of five years, university enrolment almost tripled and efforts to promote research have resulted in a 400 per cent increase in international publications and a 600 per cent increase in foreign citations of the work of Pakistani authors. During 1947-2003, not a single university in Pakistan could be ranked among the top 600 of the world, but today three Pakistani universities belong to this prestigious group, with the National University of Science and Technology at No 376 (Times, Higher Education, UK rankings).
I remember visiting a number of libraries in universities in Pakistan in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and one did not find even half a dozen of the latest journals there. Today, under the HEC digital library initiative, every public sector university has free access to over 25,000 of the latest international journals, 45,000 text books and research monographs from 220 international publishers.
It is not an ordinary thinking to bring the world’s top universities within the boundaries of Pakistan. I hope the visionary initiative of Dr Atta to establish foreign technical universities in partnership with Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Austria, and China, will be enthusiastically implemented by the new government and not shelved.
One of Dr Atta’s most important achievements is the excitement that he has been able to create in Pakistan’s brightest youth to opt for careers in education and research. Almost three thousand students have been sent abroad for PhD to top universities in the world through the HEC scholarship scheme. Dr Hoodbhoy is completely wrong when he criticises the selection process for foreign scholarships and claims that the students sent abroad were weak.
Almost half a dozen HEC PhD students worked under my guidance at our university in Tuebingen. And so far none of them failed or left our university without publishing work in journals of high repute. The HEC selection process was completely transparent and merit-based with the final selection being made by teams of eminent foreign professors who specially came to Pakistan and personally had face to face interviews with potential candidates.
Dr Atta’s (enforced?) resignation as HEC chief was a shock for the scientific community inside and outside Pakistan. Are the conclusions of the reports on the evaluation of HEC by foreign analysts, funeral sermons for the end of Pakistan’s ‘Golden period in higher education?’
“We are impressed with the breadth, scope, and depth of the reforms implemented by the HEC since 2002. No other developing country we know has made such spectacular progress.” (USAID report).
“I have worked in many countries in South America, the Middle East, North Africa, and in Russia and India, over the last six years. None in my view, with the exception of India, has the potential of Pakistan for the UK university sector, largely because of the dynamic, strategic leadership of the Chairman of HEC.” (British Council report).
Day by day more and more major concerns of university students are accumulating on the Internet, and I would like to mention here only a few of them:
• “I am really feeling bad that they cannot replace anyone who has capabilities like him. I am really worried about the future of HEC and HEC scholars outside the country.”
• “The nation cannot afford the loss of Dr Atta as Chairman HEC. At present, there is none equal to Dr Atta who can work for the betterment of higher education in Pakistan.”
• “The education sector will feel like an orphan in the absence of Dr Atta.”
As I understood from the recent visit of our Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier, Pakistan is at present suffering from a financial crisis. One of the criticisms against Dr Atta is that too much money has been spent on higher education at the cost of lower education. In the last financial year Rs248 billion were spent on nationwide education, of which only Rs28 billion (11 per cent of the total national education budget) went to higher education, while Rs220 billion were spent on lower level education, and according to the international norms, at least 25-30 per cent of the national budget should be spent on higher education. However, reducing the budget for the education sector would be the worst decision that could be made in Pakistan’s parliament: Education is the most effective remedy against terrorism; education is the fundamental basis for the prosperity of a nation, what should be supported with first priority by the government.
As a well-wisher of Pakistan, I was greatly saddened by the completely unjustified criticisms of HEC programmes. Pakistan should be grateful for the leadership provided by Dr Atta in science and technology, information technology and higher education sectors over the last eight years. He does not belong to any political party but is a scientist of the highest international standing, and his eminence and political neutrality is proved by the fact that he is the most decorated scientist of Pakistan.
Professor Atta-ur-Rahman grew up in an international scientific community, he knows in detail about the needs of the students and scientists. He wanted and still wants to realise a vision: to launch Pakistan’s higher education system from the platform of backwardness to a western state-of-the-art level. It was to be expected that the seniors of the Pakistani scientific establishment could mentally not follow the new era. Of course, fundamental parliamentary decisions need some time to prove their suitability for the nation, and then to become adapted to the needs of the country.
Though Dr Atta is a visionary, yet his inspiring intellect would not allow him to overcome insurmountable obstacles. He is receptive to criticism without losing his unfailing courtesy and flexible to change his mind; but arguments must be convincing. From my decades lasting experience with Pakistani bureaucracy, I would foresee a national tragedy, if the new government fails to make use of the unique expertise of one of Pakistan’s brightest brains.
The Higher Education Commission has enhanced fee charges for attestation and equivalence of degrees. The enhanced rates are effective from December 01, 2008. New rates are as under:
Attestation fee
Attestation fee for each original document Rs.400/-
Attestation fee for each photo copy of document Rs.200/-
Equivalence fee
Equivalence fee for local Bachelors & (Hons) degree Rs.500/- (14 - 16 years studies)/Deeni Asnaad
Equivalence fee for local Master (Hons) & Rs.1000/- M.Phil/Ph.D. degree
Pakistan Education and Research Network (PERN) isa project of Higher Education Commission launched in 2002 with a view to integrate Pakistan’s education system by linking all public and private sector universities/degree awarding institutions.PERN aimed to inter-connect all universities/DAIs to provide access of data banks, research and development activities and of teaching and learning skills.The HEC also launched PERN-2 network for universities/DAIs and other academic sectors of country to provide a fast communication infrastructure for students, teachers and researchers. PERN-2 ( also called National Research & Education Network –NERN) is to be connected with other such networks of world e.g. APAN Asia, Internet 2 USA, GEANT 2 Europe etc.
As per Ranking of World Universities carried out by Times Higher Education Services, UK following Pakistani Universities were enlisted amongst top 500 world universities:
1. National University of Science & Technology (NUST), Rawalpindi/Islamabad 2. University of Lahore, Lahore
Times Higher-QS World University Rankings is a composite measurement of six criteria, whose results are added together to produce an overall table and universities are listed accordingly. The criteria include: Peer Review Score, Employer Review Score, Staff/Student Score, Citation/Staff Score and International Staff Score. 'Ranking methodology' of Times Higher Education can be viewed at : http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=400069
Detail ranking of World Universities 2008 is yet to be publicised by Times.
The Higher Education Commission has categorized private sector universities/degree awarding institutions (DAI) in following four categories: Category W: Universities/DAI meeting requirements Category X : Universities/DAI with minor short comings Category Y: Universities/DAI not meeting requirements Category Z : Universities/DAI seriously deficient
The categorization of private universities/institutions is based on fulfillment of requirements of ‘Criteria/Guidelines for Establishment of a New University/Institution of Higher Education’ [The Criteria was approved by the Federal Cabinet and is to be followed by the HEC and all provinces]. Upgradation of universities is approved by the Chairman of the HEC considering recommendations made by the Inspection Committee.
The process was started in 2005, when a high ranked Chancellors Committee necessitated the HEC to initiate processes of evaluation/physical inspection of private universities. Said category is not academic ranking of universities/institutions. Academic ranking is a different phenomena involving consideration of academic and research dimensions of universities/institutions.
List of categories is placed below: Category (W): UNIVERSITIES/INSTITUTIONS MEETING CRITERIA REQUIREMENTS:
AbasynUniversity,Peshawar
Aga KhanUniversity,Karachi
BaqaiMedicalUniversity,Karachi
BeaconhouseNationalUniversity,Lahore
CityUniversityof Science & Technology,Peshawar
Dadabhoy Institute of Higher Education,Karachi
FoundationUniversity,Islamabad
GandharaUniversity,Peshawar
Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering & Technology, Topi.
GiftUniversity,Gujranwala
GreenwichUniversity,Karachi
HajveryUniversity,Lahore
HamdardUniversity,Karachi
Indus Institute of Higher Education,Karachi
Institute of Business & Technology,Karachi
InstituteofBusinessManagement,Karachi
IqraUniversity,Karachi
IsraUniversity,Hyderabad
JinnahUniversityfor Women,Karachi
Khadim Ali Shah Bukhari Institute of Technology (KASBIT),Karachi
