ISLAMABAD:
The Federal government has unveiled its priorities by slashing the higher education budget of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan by almost 50%.
The government had slashed, by over 50%, the development budget of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) for the fiscal year 2016-17 that ended on June 30 (Friday) to make space for uncontrolled current expenditures, in a move that shows its misguided priorities.
According to the available figures, the government did not release the Rs11.73 billion tranche for the 3rd and 4th quarter of the HEC’s Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) funds.
The PSDP documents show that during the fiscal year 2016-17, the government had allocated Rs21.48 billion for 122 projects which included 83 ongoing and 39 new schemes for development of higher education.
However, during the first half of the last fiscal year, the Ministry of Finance released only about Rs8 billion which makes it about 40% of the allocated amount.