University teachers want next HEC head on merit

ISLAMABAD: The Federation of All Pakistan University Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA), a representative body of the university teachers, has called upon the prime minister to form an unbiased, apolitical search committee for transparent and merit-based appointment of the next chairperson of the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

The tenure of current HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmad is expiring on April 15 and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is expected to constitute a search committee within next few weeks to select the next head of the commission.

In a letter addressed to the PM, the academicians’ body called for excluding political figures from the search committee. “The political interference in the higher education has brought a culture of extension, nepotism and non-transparent appointments of top leadership at HEC and Vice-Chancellors at universities,” says the letter signed by Prof Dr Kaleemullah Bareach, central president of FAPUASA, and Dr Shehzad Ashraf Chaudhry, FAPUASA Islamabad Chapter president.

According to the letter, the Higher Education Commission is the supreme body established primarily for funding, overseeing, regulating, and accrediting the higher education institutions in Pakistan.

“With more than Rs90 billion budget, the HEC plays an important and leading role towards building a knowledge based economy in Pakistan through quality assurance, development of new institutions and uplift of existing institutions in Pakistan,” the letter says. “Unfortunately, higher education in Pakistan, now-a-days is facing some problems of severe nature, which has damaged it’s image and progress. Working without its governing board since 2015, HEC has not published its annual report,” letter reads.

During recent times, HEC has failed to utilise approximately 50 percent of its development budget, which has deprived universities from critical infrastructure like labs, faculty blocks and hostels. The contractual and ad hoc appointments are at rampant in HEC as well as in varsities. Critical and policy decisions are being made through these contractual employees who don’t have any stake at all, such contractual appointments are also violation of the verdicts of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

“Four years tenure of current chairman HEC is going to expire on 15th April 2018 and it is the right time to rescue higher education by appointing the higher education leadership especially chairman HEC on merit, which is possible only if the appointment is free from political and external intervention,” the letter adds.

It says instead of granting extensions, which has already caused irreparable loss to higher education in Pakistan, there is dire need to create opportunities for dynamic and eminent personalities to lead the higher education sector.