Whats happening in Higher Education Commission?

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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This is one of the only government organizations which is working well at the moment, particularly due to an honest, upright and highly qualified Executive Director. It seems the government wants to replace him now to try milk the cash cow, if they are successful in their latest venture this would be very unfortunate for the higher education in the country.

Naqvi still serving as HEC executive director - thenews.com.pk

**Dr. Sohail Naqvi continues to be in office as Executive Director (ED) Higher Education Commission (HEC) despite Establishment Division’s notification for the appointment of Secretary Education and Trainings Division Major (r) Qamar Zaman on the said post.
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**The issue was sparked when HEC Chairman Dr. Javaid Laghari received a notification on Wednesday from the Establishment Division stating that “Major (r) Qamar Zaman, a BS-22 officer of Secretariat Group, previously posted as secretary, Education and Trainings Division, is allowed to hold additional charge of the post of Executive Director, Higher Education Commission, with immediate effect and until further orders.”
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Talking to ‘The News’, Javaid Laghari confirmed that his office has not asked Dr. Sohail Naqvi to step down from his position. “The HEC is completely following the law as per the HEC Act, Section 11, which gives the power to appoint ED to the HEC Commission,” he said pointing out that the commission has mostly been appointed by the prime minister himself. Meanwhile, Major (r) Qamar Zaman has assumed the charge of executive director HEC as per the directives of prime minister.

HEC chairman said the HEC has made a request to prime minister for meeting and expressed hope that the issue would be resolved after the meeting. “We believe only one sided and misguided opinion has been communicated to the prime minister and we have faith that he would take decision in the best interest of the nation after listening to the HEC point of view.” He said that the issue has been going on since past one and a half month and during that time the HEC tried best to communicate legal position to the prime minister. “We will never violate the law as we consider it supreme,” he said.

On the other hand, speaking up for the HEC autonomy, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan also condemned the government’s intervention into the affairs of the higher education commission (HEC), saying that the targeting of the HEC was an ongoing policy of destroying all viable state institutions of the country.

“It seems that all viable state institutions are being destroyed one by one under a plan. While the HEC, the only institution helping the youth, was not functioning as well as it could, it was still delivering in the field of higher education and the government should be supporting it by enabling it to improve its functioning,” Imran Khan said in a statement issued from the party’s official media office.

Unfortunately, Khan said, the government had been impeding its work since it came into power. “Now it has gone for a full assault on the HEC, eyeing its resources for further corruption”.

Khan pointed out that the government had contravened the SC order of April 2011, specifically asking the government not to violate HEC Ordinance 2002 by getting the Establishment Division to appoint a bureaucrat as Executive Director of the HEC.

“Legally according to the HEC Ordinance, the commission has the power to make this appointment. Worse still, a retired major, now a Grade 22 bureaucrat, has been given this appointment replacing a qualified technocrat. HEC’s performance has been devoid of major corruption and scandal, which has allowed it to gain financial support from international institutions like the World Bank — who otherwise have been reluctant to aid projects in Pakistan.”

According to Khan, “In the corrupt tradition of this present set of rulers, no viable institution is being left standing to carry out its functions in an efficient and transparent manner. Instead, all state institutions are being targeted and will fully destroyed, especially those with substantial budgets. Government corporations have been pillaged, bankrupted and politicised. Now education, which is already at the bottom of this government’s priorities, will suffer yet another major setback with this wanton destruction of the HEC”.

Khan concluded by expressing utter dismay over the inability of the present set of rulers to rise above their corrupt self-interest and act in the larger good of this nation that is so full of promise and this country, which has such richness of natural resources. “The rulers are killing the promise of their people and destroying the resources of the country with a spirit of undiluted greed.”

Earlier during the day, HEC employees and civil society organisations protested against termination of Dr. Sohail Naqvi. They also condemned the decision of the Establishment Division and termed it an intervention in the matters of the commission.

They said that the decision of the Establishment Division would not only affect all the projects of the commission, but also the studies of hundreds of students studying in foreign universities on HEC scholarship. They also threatened to start protests for unspecified time if the decision of the termination of Dr. Naqvi was not taken back. An urgent request has also been made for a meeting of the commission with the prime minister.

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Re: Whats Happening in Higher Education Commission?

This is the profile of Dr. Sohail Naqvi…

Prof. Dr. S. Sohail H. Naqvi

[TABLE=“width: 100%”]

Current Position: Executive Director, (Ex-Officio Federal Secretary), Higher Education Commission, Islamabad

Qualifications:

1988 Ph.D. Electrical Eng., Purdue University, USA, GPA (6.0/6.0)
1986 M.Sc. Electrical Eng., Purdue University, USA, GPA (6.0/6.0)
1984 B.Sc. Electrical Eng. (With Highest Distinction), Purdue University, USA, GPA (6.0/6.0)

**Professional Accomplishments
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  • Co-developed scatterometry as a metrology technique and process sensor for micro-electronic and opto-electronic fabrication and transferred to Bio-Rad Laboratories. The commercial metrology tool (CDS-2 Scatterometer) is now available for sale and is considered a key tool for future sub quarter micron (i.e. Pentium IV-V) generation microprocessors.

  • Founding member of ISTEC (Ibero-American Science and Technology Education Consortium, www.istec.org) ISTEC is a non-profit organization comprised of educational, research, and industrial institutions throughout the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula. The Consortium has been established to foster scientific, engineering, and technology education, joint international research and development efforts among its members, and to provide a cost-effective vehicle for the application and transfer of technology.

  • Established the Faculty of Electronics at the GIK Institute of Technology as one of the premier Electrical Engineering Department in South East Asia.

  • Project Director for $1.1 Million task to design, prototype, assemble and install a computerized networked, state-of-the-art, toll collection system on the Lahore-Islamabad (330km long) Motorway.

  • Managed growth of Communications Enabling Technologies in Pakistan from a 20 person project funded entity operating from a house to a 150 man[SUP]+[/SUP] Silicon Valley Venture Capital funded product company operating in a 13,000 sq. ft. facility.

  • Founding member of Engineering Education Trust (EET), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the development of higher education in Pakistan. The Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering (CASE: www.case.edu.pk ) is the first project of EET that, in the space of one year, became the largest post-graduate engineering program in Pakistan.

  • Member Steering Committee on Higher Education formed by the President, Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Helped with the transformation of the University Grants Commission into the Higher Education Commission. Co-authored the vision document for programs of the Higher Education Commission.

  • As Member, Human Resource Development and Strategic Planning of the Higher Education Commission oversaw development and implementation of over Rs. 15 Billion worth of higher education programs.

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Re: Whats Happening in Higher Education Commission?

:salute:

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^ The GPA values I believe is some misprint, but otherwise the guy is a gem...and the government wants to lose him as he is not corrupt.

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Re: Whats Happening in Higher Education Commission?

^ Why misprint? :bummer:

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Re: Whats Happening in Higher Education Commission?

^ well he is a phd doctor from good university from US, but the GPAs are in a matrix of 4, somehow the website has printed 6 instead of 4, but that doesn't negate his expertise. I have seen him closely during his enabling technologies days.

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Re: Whats Happening in Higher Education Commission?

Atta sees through plot against Higher Education Commission - thenews.com.pk

Says share in Rs48 bn budget, admissions and scholarships for nephews, nieces of politicians and revenge of MPs with forged degrees are behind govt’s move to take over HEC

Islamabad: Pakistan Academy of Sciences chairman and founder chairman of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Professor Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman on Tuesday termed the appointment of Federal Secretary Ministry of Education Major Qamar Zaman on the position of HEC executive director against the legal process and contempt of Supreme Court decision.

He spoke up for the autonomy of HEC in a press conference organised after the recent tension between government and HEC administration over the appointment of HEC executive director. Professor Dr. Khalid Mehmood Khan and Professor Dr Shami were also present in the press conference.

Rehman said that the government’s move to decide major appointments in HEC is a plot against the autonomy of the commission. “It is clear that the commission has final jurisdiction on the matter of appointment of officers of the HEC on MP scales. The secretariat of the commission is bound to implement this decision of the commission.” He said that the decision is illegal as under the present law that governs the operation of HEC, it is only the 18-member commission that has the powers to appoint all officers, servants and advisors. “The prime minister’s office or the Establishment Division has no power under law to interfere in the autonomous functioning of HEC, although the prime minister is the controlling authority of the HEC. The PM has only power to appoint it’s chairman who must be an internationally eminent scholar as per law, but he cannot remove the chairman or appoint other officers of HEC,” he explained.

He said that the commission can also formulate its own rules and regulations. “This level of autonomy was deliberately incorporated in the law at the time that HEC was being set up in 2002, as it was visualised that nepotism, cronyism and corruption would creep into this organisation if the government was allowed to meddle in its functioning, as has happened in so many organisations in Pakistan.” He said that the HEC has thus been performing its functions independent of any government interference for the last 10 years and that is one key reason for its outstanding success.

He termed the government’s decision a direct affront and open contempt to the order of the Supreme Court of Pakistan issued on April 12 last year in which the court quashed a government attempt to shred HEC into pieces as a part of the devolution process.

“The Supreme Court had declared at that time that action of the government was unconstitutional and had decided that the HEC status could not be changed,” he said. The exact words of the Supreme Court decision were “The HEC shall continue discharging its functions and duties as it had been doing in the past”.

He pointed out that the HEC has been appointing all officers with the blessings of the various governments including those on MP scales for the last 10 years adding that these positions were formally created by the Finance Ministry and so HEC has not broken the law in any manner.

Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman said that there could be many reasons why government decided to face contempt of the Supreme Court and take over the functioning of HEC. The first, he said, is HEC’s Rs48 billion annual budget that has helped to uplift the universities of Pakistan so much so that there are now several that are ranked among the top 500 of the world in international rankings whereas there were none till 2004. “With crooked politicians and government officials in abundance, many are dying to get their fingers into this pie.” Secondly, he said that control of HEC would also give them the clout to coerce the universities to grant admissions to nephews and nieces and to dole out foreign scholarships to favourites, something that has not been possible thus far because of the culture of strict merit that has prevailed in HEC since its inception.

“In a government where wheeling and dealing is the norm, an organisation that takes decisions solely on merit sticks out like a sore thumb. The transformation of HEC into a “normal” government department that “obediently follows the commands of those in power” suits many interests.

The third and most important reason in his opinion was that the HEC has incurred the wrath of a large number of Parliamentarians when it pronounced that 51 of them had forged their degrees in order to become eligible for elections and another 250 probably had also forged their degree documents as they refused to supply their original degrees and mark sheets in spite of the Supreme Court having so ordered. “What better way to protect themselves than to destroy the very institution that threatens their existence as parliamentarians?”

He said that what is happening in HEC must be seen in the larger context of the plight of science and education in Pakistan. “A series of sinister events have unfolded in the last few years that appear to be linked to an overall systematic strategy to destroy these vital sectors so that we will always be at the mercy of foreign masters for all our technological needs.”

He said that the government has closed down two key institutions that have an important bearing on Pakistan’s future including the National Commission of Biotechnology and the National Commission of Nanotechnology. “It was also decided to lower the level of the highest national science body, the National Commission of Science and Technology which previously could only be chaired by the prime minister of Pakistan — now anyone nominated by the Prime Minister can chair it, thereby considerably diminishing its clout.”

He said that the HEC has also been under attack with the budgets of universities slashed by about 50 per cent, and the powers of the Executive Director as Federal Secretary taken away.

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Re: Whats Happening in Higher Education Commission?

Dr.Atta ur Rehman - aala taleemi commission hakomati sazish ka shikar - Jang Columns