ISLAMABAD - The Senate Standing Committee on Federal Education and Professional Training on Friday directed the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to play a proactive role in improving the quality of higher education in the country.
Meeting of the committee was held here under the chairmanship of Senator Irfan Siddiqui. The committee expressed serious concerns over the delay in the preparation of the Service Structure and Act of Technologists and Engineers by the HEC.
The committee also formed a three-member sub-committee to look into the research journals written by scholars from public sector universities across the country. During the meeting, officials of the HEC informed the committee that the latest comparison of public sector universities has revealed that the quality of education in the country’s leading public sector universities is declining.
The quality of education in 32 leading universities has declined while among the universities which are suffering from high quality of education are Karachi University, Quaid-e-Azam University and others.
Expressing his reservations over the committee’s single national curriculum, Fawaz Niaz, president of the Textbook Publishers Association, said that the single national curriculum has not been fully implemented yet and now there is talk of amending it.
He said earlier, it was said that the newly developed curriculum model will meet the final standard but now it is being said that the newly developed curriculum is to test the minimum standard.
Publishers who publish their syllabus under the government model have to take separate NOC from all the units for printing the said syllabus.
Chairperson, Private Education Institutions Regulatory Authority, Zia Batool briefed the committee participants adding that she is currently working with a team of only 33 people to register and regulate the private sector across the federation.
The committee has set up a reservations cell to address the grievances of private school owners and parents.