ISLAMABAD – HEC has closed down 450 MS, MPhil and PhD programmes for notfulfilling the set criteria.
Chairman HEC Dr Mukhtar has said.
He was briefing Ministry of Federal Education and Professional TrainingSecretary Akbar Hussain Durrani on the functions, powers, initiatives andachievements of HEC since its inception in 2002 during a meeting here onFriday.
The meeting was also attended by HEC Executive Director Dr Arshad Ali andsenior management of the commission. Dr Mukhtar said that the HEC, earlierused to be the University Grants Commission, was initially tasked toimprove equitable access to the higher education, ensure quality, andrelevance of research to the country’s needs.
He said that Pakistan had only 59 universities before 2002, while grossenrolment was only 2.6 per cent.
He maintained that the number of PhDs at that time was only 3,110 and only800 research publications could surface from Pakistan. He said the numberof universities has now reached 188, whereas the gross enrolment wascurrently nine per cent.
He said that the country presently has 11,960 PhDs and the female enrolmenthas increased from 32 per cent in 2002 to 48 per cent in 2017.
He said that various HEC divisions including accreditation and attestation,human resource development, research and development, travel grants,academics, quality assurance, administration and coordination, informationtechnology and planning and development perform their respectiveassignments with professional efficiency and dedication.