LAHORE: The Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) chairperson and members have opposed all the eight amendments proposed by the Higher Education Department (HED) to the PHEC Act 2014, fearing that they would curtail the commission’s role to regulate the public and private higher education institutions (HEIs) and make it toothless.

The chairman wrote to the chief minister, complaining that the commission was not taken on board regarding the proposed amendments.

The Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) and private member bills were recently moved to the Punjab Assembly, seeking eight amendments to the PHEC Act 2014. The HED had proposed six amendments to the Act, including amendments in sections 3, 5, 10 and 12 and a general amendment, while the private member bill had proposed two amendments to sections 10 and 12.

On Dec 19, the 29th meeting of the PHEC was held to discuss proposed amendments to the PHEC Act 2014. PHEC Chairperson Prof Dr Shahid Munir, HED, Specialised Health and Medical Education Department and Finance Department secretaries, Accreditation Committee chairperson Prof Dr Muhammad Ali and 10 other members were present in the meeting. The members discussed all the amendments one by one and pointed out their concerns.

Express fear amends to PHEC Act will make commission toothless

The HED bill proposes amendment to Section-3, stating that the chief minister is currently the controlling authority of the commission and the CM’s powers should be delegated to the minister of higher education. “The Controlling Authority may delegate its powers and authority to the Minister in-charge of Higher Education Department of the Government,” it said. The PHEC members, during the meeting, remarked that the purpose of the establishment of the commission was to perform its functions autonomously. Higher education also includes health, agriculture, livestock and technical education and the chief minister should be the controlling authority of the PHEC instead of the minister of higher education, the members said.

Another proposal was aiming to curtail financial, administrative and academic powers of the chairman of the PHEC. The PHEC members said the change would make the post of the chairperson redundant and challenge the in-dependency of the post.

A proposed amendment also includes reducing members of the PHEC in the accreditation committee from three to one and giving authority to the government to constitute one or more committees. The PHEC members were of the view that the amendment would result in delaying the process of accreditation for a long period and the prevailing practice of accreditation was more effective.

The department also proposed two general amendments, including adding two more sections 28 and 29 in the PHEC Act 2014, one for performance audit of the commission while another for fixing penalty over any misconduct and negligence in the commission. The PHEC members said Section 17 of the PHEC Act had already defined the procedure for audit and there was no need to include this amendment while the penalty clause should be included in the PHEC Act 2014. However, the private member bill would suggest amendments to the Section 10 of the PHEC Act to bypass the regularity role of the commission for old public and private institutions.

The PHEC members said that the objective given in the preamble and Section 10 described the application of provision of the Act to the institution without any distinction whether the institution was old or new. The amendment would not be prudent exercise to exclude the old institutions from the ambit of the law and if it was so the whole provisions which regulated the national standards prepared by the HEC Islamabad under which public and private institution might be opened and operated, cause monitoring and evaluation of performance of the institution and carry out accreditation of the institutions, including sub-campuses and other discipline would be ceased. It would also shorten the scope of the commission and deteriorate the quality of education. It would restrict PHEC to new institutions and it could not prescribe guidelines and policies.

While another proposed amendment wanted to challenge the authority of the commission in prescribing any conditions for the higher education institutes (HEIs). The amendment would result in damaging quality and standardisation of education, in view of the PHEC members.

The private member bill also proposed amendment to Section 12 of the PHEC Act 2014, stating in the sub-section (2) that the accreditation committee should work as per direction of the commission to make recommendations regarding evaluation. The members remarked that the amendment was challenging the independent role of the accreditation committee to ensure transparency and restrict its role to evaluation only.

PHEC Chairperson Prof Dr Shahid Munir had written a letter to Chief Minister Parvez Elahi under the subject: PHEC Amendment Bill 2022, stating that an amendment through private member bill “The Punjab Higher Education Commission Amendment Bill 2022” has been placed in the assembly and referred to the Standing Committee on Higher Education for consideration.

The letters, available with Dawn, showed grave concern of the PHEC chairperson that the commission, being a major stakeholder, was not taken on board for the said amendments and some amendments were proposed without any input of the organisation.

They further stated that these amendments would deteriorate the quality of education in the province and would compromise the working of the commission, as well. The amendments would make the commission toothless and cease to put any check and balance on the sector, the PHEC chairperson said, requesting the CM that all the stakeholders should be heard before carrying out any legislation.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2022