HEC told to inspect 170 universities

Islamabad: President Mamnoon Hussain ordered the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to carry out full inspection of 170 universities crosswise the country to lessen the incidence of corruption in academia.

The orders concur along with the HEC’s own quality check of all undergraduate programmes.

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This year in September, the Higher Education Commission took action against 31 PhD and 26 MPhil programmes at a number of varsities for failing to meet the minimum quality criteria.

Financial negligence, mismanagement of authority, favoritism in appointments as well as political interference are the common in almost all universities.

The orders of president were given to the chairperson of HEC Dr Mukhtar Ahmed.

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Full inspections were ordered in the wake of continuous complaints of irregularities at the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science & Technology (FUUAST) and Karakoram International University, Gilgit-Baltistan as well as other federally-chartered varsities.

The vice chancellor of FUUAST Salman D. Muhammad was recently blamed for holding a plagiarized PhD degree. 

The president asked the commission to submit a compliance report.

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Ahmed said he was specially asked to carry out the inspections of FUUAST and Karachi University on urgent basis.

Inspections will not be a walkover as there are numerous challenges after the establishment of HEC in Punjab and Sindh.

As per the sources, HEC will also look into the number of faculty members at varsities against the actual obligation. There are often reports that universities start programmes without set requirements, hence undermining quality.

The HEC is currently working to finalise the terms of reference (ToRs) for the audits.

The TORs will involve the quality of research, publications and its impact. The commission has been blamed for ignoring varsities for churning out shallow research papers without any importance or benefit to society and industry.