New mechanism to facilitate private universities: minister

LAHORE:The Punjab government has announced facilitating private sector higher education institutions (HEIs) of the province by ensuring fast-track handling of affairs related to opening of new campuses and approval of academic programmes as envisaged in their respective charters. Revealing the formation of “Higher Education Reforms Committee for Private Sector” the announcement to facilitate private sector was made by Punjab Minister for Higher Education Raja Yasir Humayun while addressing a press conference at DGPR here Thursday.

Higher Education Department (HED) Punjab Secretary Sajid Zafar Daal, Association of Private Sector Universities in Punjab (APSUP) Chairman Ch Abdul Rehman, APSUP spokesperson Mian Imran Masood and University of Lahore’s BoG Chairman Awais Rauf were also present.

The press conference was held after a meeting of the minister and other government officials with the representatives of private sector universities.

The minister said that as per the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, the government believed in facilitating private partners working in any sector. He said the government was ready to address all genuine concerns of private sector HEIs on priority basis without any compromise on quality of education.

He said that the government would cut through the red tape and introduce an efficient mechanism to facilitate the private sector.

He said private universities were facing problems vis-à-vis approval of their programmes and campus related issues and added that the government would ensure fast-track facility for them.

He hoped that the newly-constituted reforms committee would play an important role in solving the longstanding issues faced by the private sector universities.

He clarified that the government was not going to make any law to punish the management of private sector universities and added that private universities would be dealt as per their approved charters in case of offering non-approved programmes and operating unauthorised sub-campuses etc.

About the “Higher Education Reforms Committee for Private Sector” the minister said it would be comprised of four members from the private sector and four members both from the provincial HEC and HED Punjab.

APSUP Chairman Ch Abdul Rehman said private universities sought government’s support to make the processes efficient so that time and money invested by them did not go waste while waiting for necessary approval from the departments concerned.

He highlighted the contribution of private sector to the field of higher education and said the private sector really wanted to help the government to achieve higher education access rate like India and other countries in the region and improve the quality of education.

It is pertinent to mention that in January this year, the Higher Education Department Punjab while declaring 23 sub-campuses of seven private sector universities unauthorised had directed the universities to immediately stop any further intake of students at these sub-campuses.

This was followed by recommendations by the Punjab Assembly and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to take action against private universities opening unauthorised sub-campuses and offering unapproved degree programmes to protect students’ future.