RAWALPINDI, March 19: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) would spend Rs1,000 million to enable the poor children to seek education at quality institutions of higher education, said the commission’s chairman, Dr Attaur Rehman. Speaking at the 6th convocation of the University of Arid Agriculture here on Saturday, Dr Rehman said the project had already been approved by the Ecnec.

“It’s a matter of providing equal opportunities to all,” he said and added, “My children and those of my driver should have a level playing field and they should not be left behind merely because their parents cannot pay their fees at reputed higher education institutions.”

The only eligibility, he said, to benefit from this assistance was getting admission in that particular institution on merit. Mr Rehman stated that the universities would not be asked to cut their fees to make education affordable there.

However, he did not elaborate how he would protect this money from being misused by those who were financially well-off to pay their fees but still enjoyed a free lunch. The chairman further said bachelor’s programme would be of four years throughout the country from this year. Some provinces have already started implementation, while the others are on the way to doing so.

This, he said, was an important development because internationally bachelor’s degree was of four years and that’s why “our master’s degrees were considered equal to bachelor’s degrees abroad”. Now we would be on a par with the international standards, he added.

The HEC chairman said the government would continue increasing the spending on higher education by 50 per cent every year until it became 1 per cent of the GNP. He said the higher education budget had already seen a massive increase over the past few years.

About the quality of education, Dr Rehman said, “Our universities stand nowhere on international ratings because they did not focus on faculty development. Having a properly qualified faculty is must for quality education. It’s easy to build campuses and labour under the illusion of quality education,” he said.

Speaking about the hiring of expatriates to teach at the universities, he said, the programme was running successfully and so far 256 Pakistanis settled abroad had returned to teach at the universities here. The commission, he said, was trying to reverse the trend of brain-drain into brain-gain.

His exhorted the students not to compromise on their integrity and principles. He said Pakistan had already suffered a lot because many men and women in high positions had compromised on principles.

Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool, who was chief guest on this occasion, asked the university administration to further improve the quality of education through having a quality faculty, creative curriculum, developing linkages with research centres and wholesome development of the students.

Later speaking to reporters, he said the university would soon be opening its campuses in Khushab and Chakwal. Besides, he said, the government would provide land for establishing research farms.

The governor failed to defend the provincial government’s excessive spending on advertisement campaign boasting its achievements in education sector.