ISLAMABAD, April 9: A three-member bench of the Supreme Court will start hearing on Monday a petition urging it to order the government not to devolve the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to the provinces.The bench comprises Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Mohammad Sair Ali and Justice Ghulam Rabbani.
The petition was filed on Saturday by Advocate Anwar Mansoor Khan on behalf of Professor G.A. Miana, Rector, Rippah International University, and Brig Mohammad Ajaeb, Director General, Islamabad campus, University of Lahore.
The federal government, through the ministries of law and education, the Inter-Provincial Coordination Division and the HEC, has been made respondent in the petition.
A separate application has been moved by former HEC chairman Prof Attaur Rehman requesting the court to take suo motu notice of the matter to ‘save’ the higher education sector.
The campus community has launched a nationwide campaign against the proposed devolution of the HEC after the Parliamentary Committee on the Implementation of the 18th Amendment, headed by Senator Raza Rabbani, announced the government plan last month.On April 7, a committee representing vicechancellors of more than 130 universities had supported the campaign with HEC chairman Javaid Laghari terming the devolution unconstitutional because, according to him, the commission was an autonomous body and part of the concurrent list.
The petition has requested the court to declare the devolution of the functions and authorities to the provinces and the ministries/departments/divisions through notification No. F.3(26)/2010-IC-I of March 31, 2011 unlawful and unconstitutional and therefore liable to be reversed.
The court has also been urged to allow the commission to function under the authority of the HEC Ordinance, 2002, and that any action taken by the respond ents contrary to the ordinance be undone immediately.
The petition pleaded that the role provided in item number 14 of the Federal Legislative List (Fourth Schedule of the Constitution) could not be given to the provinces and the Cabinet Division.
In the presence of the HEC Ordinance, 2002, the matters relating to Part II of the Fourth Schedule being the function of the Council of Common Interests cannot be altered or changed and devolved by the federal government through a notification.
Through the Medium Term Development Framework, 2011-2015, the HEC is creating knowledge capital and technology required to enable Pakistan to join the ranks of the industrially advanced countries within the next decade. It has accomplished more since its establishment in 2002 than was achieved in the first 55 years of the country’s existence.
Research output (as measured by published papers) grew from 815 in 2002 to 5,068 in 2010. Two Pakistani universities are now ranked among the top 300 science and technology institutions of the world.
An amount of Rs97 billion has been invested for the development of the universities since the formation of the HEC; 12 times more than Rs7.5 billion spent during the 1978-2002 period. Engineering, information technology, basic sciences and agriculture received greatest investment and projects worth more than Rs35 billion were approved for the support of engineering universities, more than 1,000 foreign PhD scholarships were awarded in engineering along with more than 500 indigenous PhD scholarships.
The HEC also set up the Pakistan Education and Research Network, one of the most sophisticated computer networks in the world linking all universities.
Video-conferencing equipment is operational in 74 institutions and expanding rapidly. A digital library provides access to 75 per cent of the world’s technical literature (23,000 e-journals and 45,000 e-books).
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