HEC tells new universities to arrange for their own funding

KARACHI: After cuts in the federal allocation for higher education in the 2019-20 budget proposal, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has decided to stop providing funds to new public varsities. The universities will, however, still be provided NOCs for admissions from the HEC.

In the past one-and-a-half years, only four universities have been established by the Sindh government alone – Government College University Hyderabad, Sheikh Ayaz University, Shikarpur, Begum Nusrat Bhutto University for Women, Sukkur and the Sufism University, Bhit Shah.

HEC chairman Dr Tariq Banuri said that owing to the financial crisis, the federal had approved only Rs 59 billion for the commission against the demand of Rs 103.5 billion.

“For development budget, HEC had demanded Rs 59 billion but the government approved only Rs 28 billion,” the HEC chairman said.

The government had allocated cumulative Rs 109 billion for HEC in 2018-19 against Rs 87 billion in 2019-20.

The federal government drastically reduced funding for the HEC this year, with overall cuts amounting to Rs 18 billion, although Rs13 billion have been allocated for ‘knowledge economy’. HEC sources told The Express Tribune that in the ongoing financial year 2018-19, the federal government had allocated Rs 45 billion for the HEC’s non-development budget, but later cut that to Rs 37 billion.