About 45 university campuses and over 3,000 colleges are working illegally across the country that either have no affiliation with universities or have not obtained no-objection certificates, reported “ The Nation.” “Currently, nearly 3,328 colleges offering degrees have neither affiliation with the universities nor have got no-objection certificates from the regulatory body of higher education,” Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed told a panel of senators. The Senate Standing Committee on Federal Education and Professional Training that met under the chairmanship of Senator Rahila Magsi Thursday discussed the status and standards of degree awarding colleges and sub-campuses of universities. He said that as a policy time period of four months has been given to colleges and universities for affiliation but they don’t bother to do so and later compel the Commission to recognise illegal institutions after enrolling hundreds of students. “Currently, 171 universities, 138 campuses are functional across the country and of them 93 have obtained no objection certificates while the rest of the campuses have been enrolling students without affiliation with any university and working illegally,” he stated. There is also evidence that a number of colleges have been granted affiliations without proper monitoring of required facilities.
The rules concerning the grant of affiliation status are so loose that a public university can grant such a status to any college in the country.
It is also surprising that HEC only visits colleges within the limits of Islamabad for monitoring and inspection.For colleges established in provinces, the relevant university is responsible for such visits. These institutes that are running without accreditation also cannot be allowed to skirt the blame. Preston University, Federal Urdu University of Arts and COMSATS Institute of Information Technology are some of the violators that have been names in news reports. The HEC may well be inefficient, but this is no excuse to continue to give out unaccredited degrees. The HEC blames the federal and provincial governments, saying that they do not take the HEC on board before the opening or affiliation of new campuses.Dr.Ahmed said that there was a policy time period of four months given to colleges and universities for affiliation, but they skirt this requirement by enrolling hundreds of students and then compelling the Commission to recognise their illegal institution or degree.COMSATS had launched a dual degree programme in engineering without the recommendations of the HEC and Pakistan Engineer council.
The Parliamentary committee has now directed the regulatory bodies to recognise at least the enrolled students. It is good that the Senate is taking note of these issues.
Higher education is risky business for students. They risk getting nothing out of the experience except an empty bank account. The HEC needs to make efforts to make sure this stops.
pk.shafaqna.com
