Governance, quality assurance termed key challenges of higher education

Islamabad:Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, Chairman, Higher Education Commission (HEC) has said that governance and quality assurance are the key challenges faced by the higher education sector of Pakistan.

Talking to media persons at HEC Secretariat in Islamabad on Thursday, the Chairman urged all the stakeholders including university leadership, faculty and the relevant government departments to take immediate steps to address the governance issues of public sector universities, which ultimately affect the quality of education and research.

“Let us be very clear about it. More we focus on improving governance mechanisms of our higher learning institutions, more will it enhance the quality of education and research and also resolve the financial challenges that many universities are grappling with,” said the Chairman.

He said that despite these challenges, the higher education sector has shown remarkable performance in the last two decades. “Since its inception in 2002, HEC has made strenuous efforts to focus on all areas important for development of higher education be it faculty development, promotion of research, technological readiness, quality assurance policies, infrastructure development, international collaboration, university sports, etc.”

Appreciating the Government for taking care of higher education sector despite financial crunch, he urged the federal and provincial governments to allocate more resources for the sector.

“Funding of higher education sector is stagnant for last many years while the number of universities has been increasing quite rapidly. I appreciate the Government of Sindh for providing a substantial amount to the provincial universities in addition to the federal grant. We will request other provinces to follow suit and provide a good share of funding to the universities.”