Islamabad : The Higher Education Commission has said it will soon launch a mobile app to give information to parents and students about the validly accredited educational programmes and institutions.
This was disclosed by the HEC officials during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Federal Education and Professional Training here on Friday with Senator Irfan Siddiqui in the chair.
The HEC officials said no mechanism was in place for the registration of the students going abroad for study on a self-finance basis.
They said the students applied for admissions in foreign universities and got visa on their own.
The executive director of HEC said prompt action was taken against the illegal institutions and campuses quoting example of Al-Khair University.
The chairman lamented the role of HEC on the issue and directed it to give details of those actions in the next meeting.
The education ministry officials said as per Information shared by the Universities, the total number of foreign students is 5,248 belonging to 70 different countries. They are studying in different Universities through various programs like development projects, Bilateral agreements, or individually.
The chair said a comprehensive list should be produced indicating the number of foreign students in each university along with their subjects and nationality.
The officials said the HEC was preparing a digital handbook of the Pakistani universities and their programmes offered by each University along with the admission criteria to attract foreign students to create diversity in student life-cycle for exchange, cultural, academic and experience for opening up new knowledge avenues.
To the committee’s recommendations regarding creation of separate track and service structure for technologists, officials said engineers, Engineering Technologists and other Technologists were separate and distinct professionals, who work in tandem with their counterparts, but need separate albeit parallel career paths, that are complementary rather than confrontational.
The committee had recommended that notification withdrawn by HEC should be restored to provide interim relief to 350 thousand technologists till a separate service structure is formed for them.
The chair expressed displeasure over the non-compliance of the recommendation and resistance by the HEC on the matter and directed the education secretary to formally seek an explanation on the matter from the HEC and present it in the next meeting of the committee. The chairman of the National Technology Council said the first draft of the National Technology Council ACT was finalised.
However, further consultation with other stakeholders, including Ministry of Science & Technology, and approval of the Higher Education Commission is required. Chairman Committee directed to expedite the process and resolve the issue on immediate basis as it has been lingering on for 70 years
The HEC executive director said funds were distributed to all the public sector universities according to a formula which was based on performance, ranking, enrolment, type and number of programs introduced in a particular university.
She further said 32% of the funds are provided by HEC, 8% by respective provincial governments and 60% of the funds are to generated by universities on their own.
She said the HEC was involved at every stage of decision making through representation of HEC officials in senate, syndicate and selection boards of the universities, while it also conducted performance audit of the universities randomly and performance audit of 30 universities has been done last year and 40 more such audits will be completed this year.
The chairman ordered the production of reports of the said audits to the committee members. The chairman said a new sub-committee will be formed to look into research journals and publications of the universities. It will also visit universities of all four provinces in order to assess on ground situation of the problems faced by students and faculty.
Senator Rukhsana Zuberi said the report of the sub-committee formed to probe the murder and male rape case at International Islamic University Islamabad had been finalised.