Islamabad: Largely living up to its promise of not cutting the current funding for the Higher Education Commission in the next fiscal, the federal government on Friday announced Rs41.87 billion development budget for the tertiary education regulator in 2022-23 against Rs42.45 billion in the outgoing financial year.
Of that outlay, 93 per cent i.e. Rs38.77 billion will go to 138 ongoing projects, while the new schemes totalling 11 will get Rs3.1 billion, show the federal budget 2022-23 documents formally released by finance minister Miftah Ismail in the National Assembly on Friday.
As for the ongoing HEC initiatives to be funded next year, the largest amount from the budgetary allocations i.e. Rs1.28 billion is for putting up sub-campuses of public sector universities at district level across the country (umbrella project).
Next on the list are Rs1.005 billion for setting up the National University of Science and Technology’s campus in Quetta, Rs1 billion each for the Prime Minister’s Laptop Scheme, 3,000 educational scholarships to Afghan students under the Allama Iqbal Scholarship Programme as well as Higher Education Development Programme of Pakistan, Rs700 million each for PhD Scholarship Programme under Pakistan-US Knowledge Corridor, and Innovation Centre and Software Park at the UET’s sub-campus, Lahore, Rs644.358 million for expansion and upgradation of the International Islamic University, Islamabad, Rs600 million each for overseas scholarship for MS/MPhil leading to PhD programmes in selected fields and Fulbright Scholarship Support Programme, and Rs500 million each for Human Resource Development Initiative (MS leading to PhD programme of the faculty development for engineering universities and UESTPs), improvement of academic facilities at the University of Karachi, Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme Phase II, and development of the University of Buner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The other major ongoing projects to receive money in 2022-23 are Rs464 million for the University of Dir, Rs452 million for the University of Sibbi, Rs418 million for the FATA University, Rs400 million each for the Sukkur IBA University Campus in Mirpur Khas, the Sindh Madrassatul Islam’s campus in Malir, Karachi, high performance and resource centres under the Kamyab Jawan Programme and Youth Olympics and 5,000 PhD fellowships, Rs350 million for the development of main campus of the Bacha Khan University, Charsadda, and Rs300 million each for academic collaboration under the CPEC Consortium of Universities and development and improvement of academic facilities at Ghazi University, DG Khan, development of infrastructure at Lasbela University of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences, Balochistan.
A look at new HEC projects to be executed next year shows the largest part of the Rs3.1 billion budget will be spent on the Youth Laptop Scheme (Rs1 billion).
The other major funding in the category includes Rs350 million each for establishing the University of Gwadar and Dr AQ Khan Institute of Metallurgy and Emerging Sciences, Rs300 million each for setting up the permanent campus of the Lasbela University of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences, Balochistan, and rehabilitating and upgrading infrastructure at the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Rs200 million each for Coastal Region Higher Education Scholarship Programme for Balochistan and strengthening facilities at the Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences, Quetta, and Rs100 million each for establishing Pakistan-Korea Nutrition Centre and strengthening the KBMA CVS and the Centre for Advanced Studies in Physics, Government College University, Lahore.