It may be recalled that Higher Education Commissions (HEC) of Punjab and Sindh have questioned the legality of the Federal HEC as after the passage of the 18th Constitutional Amendment, education has become a provincial subject.
HEC director media, Ayesha Ikram told Business Recorder that during the year 2017, HEC awarded 395 overseas scholarships and 1068 indigenous scholarships in various disciplines. Under International Research Support Initiative Programme, 412 PhD scholars preceded for research abroad, each for a period of six months. While under bilateral agreement for Hungaricum Scholarships, 157 students proceeded to Hungary for PhD, MS and BS studies.
Besides embarking upon the execution of US-Pakistan Knowledge Corridor, HEC launched Allama Muhammad Iqbal Scholarship Programme for Afghan national students under which 3000 scholarships will be awarded to Afghan students. HEC also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Turkey to avail scholarships for Pakistani youth to study in Turkish universities. HEC held a plenty of deliberative sessions to discuss the modalities of Pakistan-UK knowledge gateway with all the stakeholders.
HEC also launched the 'Provision of Higher Education Opportunities for Students of Balochistan and FATA, Phase-II' under which a total of 3900 students from Balochistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) will be extended financial support to acquire education.
HEC and China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), a state-owned company of the People's Republic of China, signed a document of understanding under which the later will sponsor 30 Pakistani students for Master degree programme in Transportation Engineering at Southeast University China consecutively for two academic years. The scholarship will be fully funded and cover tuition, accommodation, return airfare and living stipend for all the awardees.
As a whole, HEC approved 22 development projects worth Rs 48 billion for universities in the year. Moreover, HEC launched the Prime Minister's National Laptop Scheme (PMNLS) Phase IV & V. So far, 0.3 million students have benefited under three phases of the scheme executed by HEC. With the efforts of HEC, the laptops assembly plant has been installed in Pakistan and students are now able to get made-in-Pakistan laptops along with Evo devices under the scheme.
As the quality of Engineering education in Pakistan improved further due to initiatives and efforts of Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) and HEC. It was in June 2017 that Pakistan was declared as Full Signatory of the Washington Accord. Engineers registered with PEC will now be considered at par as world class competent professionals and will not be evaluated for any emigrational assessment for their degrees and will be eligible for professional jobs outside in the developed countries.
In 2017, Pakistan's first Internet Exchange Point (PKIX) was also inaugurated at HEC under the headship of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and support of HEC as well as Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The primary purpose of PKIX is to allow networks to interconnect directly, via the exchange, rather than through third-party networks. It will also enable local networks to efficiently exchange information at a common point within Pakistan rather than exchanging local Internet traffic with outside world.
HEC also established Education Testing Council (ETC) in 2017 to ensure free-of-cost, standardised entry tests for admissions in public and private institutions. ETC conducted its first entry tests for Fall 2017 admissions.
As a part of National Qualifications Framework (NQF), HEC launched Pakistan Qualification Register (PQR) in order to enable the students and their parents to make informed decisions. The e-portal system helps stakeholders of HEC to view online the programmes of Pakistani universities that have been approved by HEC. It is aimed to provide clearly denned levels of knowledge, skills and competencies to be acquired by every graduate. HEC also plans to launch Higher Education Information Management System (HEIMS) soon. Moreover, HEC has proposed establishment of NIAT (National Institute of Applied Technology) in order to accelerate the technology readiness.
As part of its programmes for infrastructure development and expansion of universities and sub-campuses, sub-campuses of Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University, Lasbela University and University of Poonch were made operational in Naushki, Wadh and Forward Kahuta, respectively thus provide higher education at the doorstep for inhabitants of these areas. HEC also announced establishment of University of Khushab for students of the district and adjoining areas. It also announced establishment of two university colleges in Balochistan, one each in Zhob and Dera Murad Jamali. The University College Zhob will be a constituent college of Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences (BUITEMS) Quetta. The second university college will be established in Dera Murad Jamali and will be a constituent college of Lasbela University of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences, Uthal.
However, HEC stopped four universities from admitting students in any degree programme, owing to academic irregularities and mismanagement and after non-compliance despite constant reminders from HEC to fulfill the deficiencies. The Commission has so far closed down around 450 MS and PhD programmes of different universities, as they failed to fulfil the HEC criteria. To create awareness among parents and students about the status of universities, their campuses and programmes, HEC continued its series of publishing Parent and Student Alerts in national dailies in 2017 too.
Seven Pakistani universities won representation in 300 best universities of Asia in the Times Higher Education's 2017 ranking announced in March 2017. Only two universities were enlisted in the ranking in 2016, but the number reached seven in 2017 with the addition of five more universities from Pakistan.
"Connecting Talent, Driving Change", the conference drew a record number of 900 delegates from 77 countries.
HEC launched CPEC Consortium of Business Schools in 2017 as a step forward towards successful execution of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Consortium of the two countries will focus on issues of economics and management. The business schools will be assigned projects to assist the two governments in the development and operation of CPEC.
As a whole, 41 percent of HEC funding goes to human resource development, 33 percent to ensuring equitable access, 23 percent to ICT development and the rest of four percent to other necessities. HEC has so far allocated funds for construction of 505 academic blocks in universities, out of which 357 blocks have been completed and 148 are under-construction. HEC eyes ensuring establishment of at least one institution in each district by 2019 without any compromise on quality of education.