Deadline set for varsities’ sub-campuses

LAHORE
THE Punjab government has warned private sector involved in higher education of withdrawing the status of sub-campus of public sector universities of all existing sub-campuses established under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) for failing to fulfil formalities as per the new guidelines.
The existing sub-campuses have been given a period of 120 days allowing these campuses to continue working as affiliated institutions of the universities concerned.
The new policy framework for the establishment of sub-campuses of public universities under the PPP mode were approved by the Punjab Governor (Chancellor of the province’s public sector varsities) and issued by the Higher Education Department (HED) Punjab on February 09.
The most significant aspects from of the new guidelines are application of all provisions of the Act/Ordinance of a public university on its sub-campus established under the PPP mode as well as approval of the fee structure for each programme of study at the sub-campus by the Syndicate of the university.
Similarly all the revenue generated by the sub-campus through fee, donation and gifts etc shall be deposited into the university account/ funds while share of the private party shall be distributed by the university with the approval of the Syndicate. Also, the administrative control of such sub-campuses would lie with the university concerned.
Sources in the HED said the new framework was issued over frequent complaints by the stakeholders against unchecked and unregulated working of the sub-campuses established by private parties, including unrecognised academic programmes, poor quality of education and varying fee structure.
They said former Secretary HED Abdullah Khan Sumbal, who is now Commissioner Lahore Division, had initiated the student-friendly move.
The sources privy to the developments said some public universities had established their sub-campuses under public-private partnership at their own will compromising on quality of education which resulted in mushroom growth of such campuses in the recent past.
They said there was no uniformity vis-à-vis setting up of sub-campuses by the universities and these had different types of agreements with the private parties. For example, some universities charged per student from the private parties while others had set percentage on overall income from the private parties.
It is pertinent to mention here that the University of Sargodha tops the list of universities having five sub-campuses under the PPP mode.
University of Gujrat (UoG) has two sub-campuses, Government College University (GCU) Faisalabad two and Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) Multan has only one sub-campus under the PPP mode.
It is also important to mention here that a controversy had erupted over the establishment of BZU Multan sub-campus in Lahore a couple of years ago.
The Executive Board Meeting (EBM) of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in its meeting held in January this year had authorised an inquiry against the BZU Multan Vice-Chancellor Prof Khawaja Alqma, and Registrar Malik Munir Hussain and others as they allegedly illegally opened BZU Lahore sub-campus in connivance with each other without getting approval from the University Syndicate and NOC from Higher Education Commission and misuse of authority. The press release about this decision is still available on the NAB website.
According to the new notified guidelines, a copy available with The News, any PPP agreement between a university and private party has to be made in the light of provisions of the Public Private Partnership 2014 of the Punjab government.
As per the formalities, (Legal) cases regarding establishment of sub-campuses can only be processed by a public university if any such provision has been provided in its Act/Ordinance with subsequent approval of the Syndicate while the Sponsoring Body/ Private Party seeking the partnership should be a Company/ Society/ Trust etc registered under the Companies Ordinance/ Societies Registration Act/ Trust Act etc. The sub-campus shall neither be established in a rented building nor shall it be set up in a residential area being a commercial venture.
The new guidelines have also empowered the Higher Education Department and Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) to take any action, including closure of sub-campus, if it has been found in any subversive or unlawful activity, or it avoids/ overlooks provisions of Act/ Ordinance/ Laws/ criteria and guidelines of the federal Higher Education Commission, HED or the deed agreement.