PHEC to expand Community Colleges project across Punjab

LAHORE: After a successful pilot project, Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) is planning to expand its Community Colleges project from existing four divisional headquarters to all the nine divisions of the province from coming academic session. 

As per the plan, the PHEC in collaboration with Higher Education Department will be supporting at least two colleges, one male and one female, in every district of the province to launch specially designed Associate Degrees being offered under the Community Colleges project. The aim is simple to offer market-oriented courses and produce graduates equipped with employability skills in order to beat the ever growing unemployment. The project was launched last academic year at four colleges including Govt College Township, Lahore, Govt Post Graduate College for Women, Gujranwala, Govt College Civil Lines, Multan and Govt College for Women, Faisalabad and programmes offered included Associate Degree in IT, Commerce, Mass Communication and Fine Arts with specialisation in Textile Design (only in Faisalabad). 

“This would have been done much before,” said PHEC chief Dr Mohammad Nizamuddin while expressing optimism and why not as “better late than never.” He added the response received so far was amazing. “The government is really supportive and provided us almost Rs 150 million to expand the project’” he said and added no new infrastructure was required and the funds were being spent on labs and training of faculty. “Our plan is to expand the project across Punjab from September by selecting at least two colleges in each of the district,” he added.

The students enrolled in the programmes would be offered paid internships providing them opportunity of practical exposure. Dr Nizam further said 2-year Associate Degree was equivalent to traditional Bachelors Degree and students, if they wanted, could continue further studies afterwards as it was a semester system based programme.

Dr Nizam further said Community Colleges, also referred as junior colleges, are the intermediary institutions different advanced countries which cater the needs of local industries. 

Dr Shahid Soroya, who heads the Community Colleges project at PHEC, said last year principals of four colleges were sent to United States for training so that they gain firsthand experience vis-à-vis Community Colleges and get training. He said the project was designed to address pressing issue of unemployment among educated youth. He said the courses being offered were demand-driven and market oriented.

Dr Soroya said the courses were designed keeping in view local industry requirements. “For example, as we are offering Textile Design in Faisalabad, there would be courses related to sports and other industries in Sialkot,” he added. To a question, he further said the Associate Degree programmes were approved as the selected colleges were affiliated with relevant public sector universities for these programmes.