ISLAMABAD: The Senate has been informed by State Minister for Education Balighur Rehman that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has received 13 proposals for setting up of new universities across Pakistan.
During Question Hour, the minister said that a total of 35 universities had been established during last five years. Giving the breakup, he said that two universities out of total were set up in the capital, 13 in Punjab, nine in Sindh, seven in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three in Azad Jammu Kashmir and one in Balochistan.
He said that it was envisaged that a university or sub-campus should be set up at every district level. To a supplementary question, he said that the federal government was paying fee of students belonging to Balochistan enrolled in MA/MSc, MPhil and PhD. To another question, he said that Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has never been ranked in HEC rankings and could not be said that the varsity was on the top 20 universities till 2010.
He said that the university had been excluded from the rankings as universities imparting distance learning education were excluded from the ranking due to incompatibility with formal education. He said that the number of students of AIOU had increased. To a question, Baligh told the House that education was a devolved subject after the 18th amendment. However, the national curriculum council was set up to coordinate with each other.
The minister said that as many as 803 employees were working on ad-hoc and daily wages basis in AIOU. The new vice chancellor has made some regular appointment on key administrative posts with the approval of the competent authority. -APP