HEC Dissolution to Provincial Level.

The Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) in now dissolved to provincial level. Former chairman of HEC and the pioneer of lucrative educational policies Dr. Atta Ur Rehman is terming this as a "National Disaster." In an interview on a private news television channel he mentioned some the most obvious reasons for this dissolution which are:

1. To avoid degree scrutiny by our political leaders as member of the parliament needs to hold a graduate degree. The verification of these degrees was given to the HEC and as a result created a rift between the commission and the political circles.

2. To get illegal access to huge lands owned by different universities around Pakistan.

3. To further practice corruption within the education sector and to nurture respective political ideologies. As after this, it will be the provincial regulatory committees responsible for the provision of scholarships, grants and to oversee state and private universities. As a result, it would be soon that one would be able to find two-room universities in different corners of the country nurturing different political ideologies.

Now as a graduate myself in Pakistan and hoping to pursue my doctorate studies here; What do students like me fear? To start with, HEC now working as cells around Pakistan would lose its centralized transparent structure as we already have seen how incompetent our provincial structure is. Thanks to the 18th amendment of Pakistan constitution; which is dubbed to be the best thing happened to Pakistan since the 1973 constitution but only if we had a reliable strong political structure. Given the present scenario everyone is aware how dire this step is and what consequences we would be visible in few years time.

I also fear the the different grants and scholarships available to the Pakistani students from different governments and organizations around the would would be stopped. Its has been only few hours since the news of HEC dissolution is announced and already we had a statement from the present HEC chairman Dr. Javaid Laghari that the USAID and World Bank has stopped their aid which sums up to about $550 billion that was to be used by HEC for the coming 5 years to carry out different projects. Apart from these future promises, the present structure of the commission in question is also uncertain of its future like the HEC Digital Library and HEC e-learning.

Now the interesting thing would be to see how the nation responds to this. Dr. Atta-Ur-Rehman and Dr. Javed Leghari are already appearing on different news channels to sum up these mentioned facts to the nation. What matters now is would there be someone to carry out any action on this unfolding situation. I hope and I pray that there would be some patriotic Pakistanis among us that would stand up to this matter and do justice with it.