HEC receives small share

ISLAMABAD: The federal government, despite making tall claims of laying priority on improvement of education sector, has made less allocation of funds to Higher Education Commission (HEC) in the current budget for the fiscal year 2019-20.

Compared to previous allocation of funds of Rs46 billion to HEC in the budget 2018-19, the present government has made total allocation of only Rs29 billion to be spent on on-going and new schemes in the current year. It means the government this year has curtailed allocation of funds to HEC by 40 percent as compared to previous year 2018-19. Out of the total funds allocated to HEC in the budget, an amount of Rs4159.782 million would be spent on new development schemes whereas Rs24887.100 million would be earmarked for completing old schemes under National Development Programme 2019-20.

In all HEC has 17 new projects to initiate during the fiscal year 2019-20 while work on 129 on-going schemes would be completed by the end of next fiscal year. Similarly, for Federal Education and Professional Training Division (FEPTR) an amount of Rs4796.762 million is earmarked in the budget for starting new schemes and completing old projects. For new projects Rs2425.101 million would be spent while Rs2371.661 million has been allocated. The Federal Education and Professional Training Division has only 10 old projects which remain yet to be completed. In comparison to it the FEPTR would start work on 20 new schemes during the year 2019-20.

Moreover, compared to previous year 2018-19, the government in the new fiscal year has curtailed amount of allocation of funds to Education Affairs and Services by at least Rs20 million. In the fiscal year 2019-20 government has made an allocation of Rs77,262 million to Education Affairs and Services compared to allocation of Rs97,155 million made in year 2018-19. Out of total funds of Rs77,262 million allocated to Education Affairs, Rs2,831 million would be spent on Pre-Primary & Primary Education Affairs services, Rs6,718 million on Secondary Education Affairs & Services, Rs65,233 million on Tertiary Education Affairs and Services, Rs300 million to Subsidiary Services to Education etc.

Besides making allocation of appropriate funds this year to education sector, the government has taken another good decision which includes reducing duties by 3 percent on paper meant for text books of schools and colleges. As a result price of text books would reduce in a marginal way thus benefitting the students.