Saturday 2 April 2011

HEC devolution what madness

I would like to draw everyones attention to an impending disaster that the higher education sector is about to face in this country. As you might know Raza Rabbani and his team is hell bent upon devolving HEC under the 18th amendment, we in the academia believe that this is punishment to HEC for declaring fake the degrees of a number of parliamentarians. I must point out that this devolution to the provinces, who have no capacity to handle the affairs of higher education, will result in ruination of all the gains of HEC over the past few years. And let me assure you the gains have been tremendous, you just need to look at the numbers to realize how well the Universities and researchers are doing. 

My personal example is right there, in the about 14 years of my career prior to HEC I had published 16 research papers in International journals, over the last 4 years due to funding for research from HEC I have published 31 papers and just last year I published 14 papers, which has been a personal record and almost unheard of for an experimental scientist and this year already I have published 6 papers. These have all been because of HEC, without which I would have stayed in the private sector and not moved into a public sector University. I must also point out that for the first time in my life I have had a respectable salary under the HEC TTS system, before that I was always hand to mouth and always thinking of leaving Pakistan to make a decent living. And these are just a few gains which I have had, others have also benefited immensely and for the first time in Pakistan's history I have seen poor students being awarded PhD scholarships to study in the developed countries.

I would thus urge everyone to raise their voice against this devolution of an institution which has been performing par excellence. Please do so before it is to late and Rabbani gets his revenge on HEC.

Best wishes,

--
Prof. Dr. Raheel Qamar, T.I.
Dean of Research & Innovation

4 comments:

  1. " According to the Game theory, in the real world, all of us act as players and make moves and adopt different strategies in order to increase payoffs. Our government is going to take a "move" by dissolving HEC. Now it is up to rest of the Players (we people) that we also adopt "a collective strategy" so that HEC could be protected from dissolution. At this point we need actions. Just condemnation of this act is not sufficient as "actions can be counter balanced with actions only". Using all democratic means at all levels is a must now. In this regard from national assembly to student organizations at universities must play their effective role. After all, we are part and players of this game. "

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  2. I agree with you 100% without action this present government will sell or destroy all our family jewels.

    Raheel

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  3. The dissolution of HEC, a prestigious educational management body at the national level, is a disastrous move to curbe higher education in the country. HEC is one of the most laudable institions of pakistan and I think it has worked efficiently since its inception but done exceptionally well during the last 2-3 year on many fronts. It was deprived of funds and forced to bow but it never let it leave to proceed on sound priciples and legacy. It moved and moved on but suddenly the Govt decided to sack it which has disturbed every serious pakistani. We are hopeful that the Govt. will consider the call from nation and not decide to shred HEC into pieces.

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  4. If the Government listens to the people then yesterday's rally should send it a big message to wake up and smell the roses ;-) See the news item at:

    http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=41364&Cat=6&dt=4/13/2011

    Raheel

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